Florentine Art Under Fire

FLORENTINE ART
UNDER FIRE

FLORENTINE ART

UNDER FIRE

BY FREDERICK HARTT

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

1949

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OS UNIVER^ITV

CENTRA L A RCH AEOLOG;^ AL
LIEKACY, NEW DELHI.

Aoe. No . \'^\H7

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PK.NTEO IN the VSITEP ^
university

TO T’EGGr

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I T is impossible to thank individually all those who collaborated in the work
described in this book. Of many I have no trace, not even their names.
Others are mentioned at length in the description of incidents in which
they took part. Nonetheless there are many to whom I owe a special word
of appreciation. Prof. Ernest DeWald and Mr. John Ward Perkins, as director
and deputy director respectively of the Monuments and Fine Arts Sub-com-
mission of ACC, placed me in my assignment with a full knowledge of the
magnitude of the responsibility and gave me whole-hearted support. Prof.
Deane Keller and Prof. Norman Newton were understanding superiors during
the periods when some portion of my duties fell under their jurisdiction.
Col. Robert G. Kirkwood, my Regional Commissioner, was as fine a com-
manding officer as I ever had the good fortune to obey, and Brig. Gen. Edgar
Erskine Hume gave me the same measure of support he would have accorded
to one of his own officers. To Cecil Pinsent, Roger Enthoven, and Edward
Croft-Murray I owe a debt of gratitude for their devoted work in Florence.
Without such Provincial Commissioners as Colonels Rolfe of Florence, Nichols
of Siena, Walters of Pisa, Me Bratney of Pistoia and Quin-Smith of Arezzo
the work here described would not have been possible.

The Italian Superintendents not only did excellent work but were loyal to
the Allied officers who worked with them during the war and its aftermath.
Comm. Giovanni Poggi, Profs. Filippo Rossi, Ugo Procacci, Rafiaello Niccoli,
Piero Sanpaolesi, and their assistants deserve my warm thanks. I wish also to
e.xpress my appreciation to Commendatore Poggi, Professor Procacci, and
Sig. Bruno Farnesi for permitting me to publish their narratives. My assistants
in the office, Signorina Ester Sermenghi, Miss Ingeborg Eichmann,

Paul O. Bleecker, Franco Ruggenini, and Alessandro Olschki were hard work-
ers and good friends.

Work would have been infinitely more difficult without the hospitality and
friendship of Donna Lucrezia Corsini, in whose palace I stayed for ten months.
Chief among the other Italians whom I would like to thank for innumerable
personal kindnesses are Count and Countess Guido Rasponi, Countess Bocchi-
Bianchi dei Franceschi, Comm. Aldo Olschki, Mons. Giuseppe Bertocci, Prof.
Ranuccio Bianchi-Bandinelli, Prof. Mario Salmi, Sen. Gaetano Pieraccini,
Comm, and Signora Marino Querci. To the architects, inspectors, parish priests,
officers, soldiers, engineers, carabinieri, my appreciation for the help they gave,
each in his own sphere.

{ vit }

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One hardly knows where to begin to thank Bernhard Berenson. Throughout
the difficult winter of 1944-1945 he and Signorina Nicky Mariano gave me the
kind of moral support that made even failures seem worth while.

Finally my sincere thanks to Miss Margot Cutter of Princeton University
Press, for her encouragement and for her help in revising the manuscript.

Acknowledgment for the use of photographs is made to the Superintendency
of Galleries, Florence, for Figures 3, 8, 10, 12 , 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 38, 39, 45, 47, 48, and 49; to Alinari for Figures 7, ii, 20, and
44; and to Brogi for Figures i, 5, 6, and 15.

TZew Yor\, ] antiary ly,

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION 3

II. SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE 9

III. THE PICTURES OF FLORENCE 15

IV. THE LIBERATION OF FLORENCE 36

V. SALVAGE IN AND AROUND FLORENCE 48

VI. MORE FLORENTINE PICTURES 67

VH. SALVAGE IN PISA AND AREZZO 80

VHI. THE RETURN OF THE FLORENTINE

ART TREASURES 96

APPENDIX 111

I. IXTACT .MONUMENTS 113

II. DAM.\GED .MONUMENTS AND THEIR REPAIRS 118

III. MO.NU.MENTS TOTALLY DESTROYED 143

IV. DESTROYED WORKS OF ART 145

V. WALLED-UP PICTURES 146

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES FOLLOW I ngIIO

MAPS

1. TUSCANY 126

2. GERMAN CONVOY ROUTES 126

3. DAMAGED AND DESTROYED AREAS OF FLORENCE 140

{ -'V }

FLORENTINE ART
UNDER FIRE

ABBREVIATIONS

ACC

Allied Control Commission

AFHQ

Air Force Headquarters

AMG

Allied Military Government

AMGOT

Allied Military Government
Occupied Territory

BBC

British Broadcasting Company

CAO

Civil Affairs Officer

CNL

Committee of National Liberation

MFAA

Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives

OP

Observation Post

OSS

Office of Strategic Services

PBS

Peninsular Base Section

SCAO

Senior Civil Affairs Officer

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters American
Expeditionary Force

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

E very region of Italy is rich in works of art, but none so rich as Tuscany.
Wars have passed over it. Time, weather, vandalism and neglect have
destroyed possibly more than remains. Rare prizes have been carried
off by invaders or sold by priests and private owners. Yet what is left in the
birthplace of the Renaissance is still the greatest and most nearly complete
artistic heritage that mankind possesses. In peacetime thousands of tourists
visited the Tuscan cities each year, many hundreds went to the hill towns,
some indefatigable students always managed to reach the remote villages, each
of which cherished some fine fresco or sculpture or church tower, or was itself,
complete with walls and towers on its hilltop, a work of art. To the student
who knew Italy before the war the beauty of the Tuscan towns and cities, the
magnificence not only of the Pitti and the Uffizi but of the scores of provincial
collections, the grandeur of the churches and the palaces, must have seemed
as inviolable as the matchless Tuscan landscape.

What happens when this dense fabric of human achievement, so infinitely
precious, so incalculably old, so carefully guarded, is struck by tlie full force
of modern warfare ? This is what I shall try to record in the following pages.
It is a chapter of recent history, in which I hope Allied successes and Allied
failures will receive equally objective treatment, and in which honest German
attempts to protect and to save works of art will be related side by side with
the concerted Nazi program under which Tuscany was to be insofar as possible
despoiled of her art treasures. German mines, often needlessly, obliterated a
high proportion of Tuscan monuments; Allied bombers damaged many a
church and palace with bombs intended for nearby railway yards or troop
concentrations. What remained intact was protected and what was injured was
salvaged through fourteen months of ceaseless efforts by Allied and Italian
officials in daily collaboration. I cannot hope to tell the whole story. Many an
event, of intense significance for us who lived through these unforgettable
months, can no longer be recaptured in anything like its full force. I have tried
therefore to include in this account only the most dramatic incidents; more
complete information is recorded in the Appendix.

The Italian authorities had done, as we later found out, almost everything
possible to protect their country’s treasures against bombardment. In most cities
every movable work of art from churches and museums had been taken to
villas, castles, or monasteries outside the city to form deposits guarded by local
custodians and periodically inspected by expert restorers from the great mu-

{ 3 }

INTRODUCTION

scums. In addition, the contents of many of the largest libraries and archives
had also been evacuated to similar deposits in order to preserve illuminated
manuscripts, early printed books, and valuable historical documents.

Those works which could not be moved — frescoes on church walls, sculptured
portals, pulpits, fonts, and tombs, carved decorations on church facades — were
covered to minimize the damage from high explosives. Granted that no feasible
shelter could be designed to protect these works from direct hits, it was still
possible to reduce the even more frequent danger from nearby explosions. After
preliminary protection by paper or cloth to prevent scratches to the surface,
these immovable works of art were generally hidden behind a barrier of sand-
bags held in place by a scaffold, and sometimes an additional wall of reinforced
concrete or of brick. Unusually slender columns were often sheathed in brick-
work to the top, and fragile arches propped at the center by piers of brick. In
the case of frescoes, air holes had to be left in the protective walls to permit
circulation of air and prevent the growth of mold. But works of architecture
could not be protected on any extensive scale. Their size and their number
made that impossible.

This work of protection was the responsibility of Italian government agen-
cies. Ail works of art in Italy are under the supervision of the Superintendencies
of Monuments and Galleries, jurisdiction of archives and libraries falling to
the Ministry of the Interior. These Superintendencies, of which there are more
than fifty, are responsible to a General Direction of Fine Arts, part of the
Ministry of Public Instruction. With few exceptions the Superintendencies are
staffed with an unusually competent group of art historians, architects, restor-
ers, who have the final word on all questions relating to the preservation of
works of art considered part of the national heritage, even if they are private
property. In this connection it should be observed that most museums in Italy
are not, as in the United States, private corporations, but are the residue of the
numerous royal or ducal collections of the great principalities into which Italy
was formerly divided, and to which in 1870 the united Italian State fell heir.
Furthermore, the Italian Kingdom also expropriated the holdings of the Church
throughout Italy, so that Church buildings became government property
Parish and cathedral churches were left to the occupancy of the clergy, while
the State, since it had confiscated the Church lands from which income was
derived, assumed the responsibility for the maintenance of the Church buildings
in perpetuity. Monastic establishments were in manv cases sold back to the
monastic orders. Very often, however, they were used by the State as office
buildings, barracks for troops or carabinieri, or sold to private individuals
Many Italian palaces came under State control, either through direct inheritance
by the Crown or through purchase. But whether public or private property

{ 4 }

INTRODUCTION

Italian law provides strong safeguards for the maintenance of the condition
and original appearance of any building of artistic importance.

To the Allies, also, the safety of Italian art was a cause for deep concern. The
story of Roosevelt’s appointment of the Commission for the Protection
of Cultural Treasures in War Areas, generally known as the Roberts Commis-
sion, needs no retelling. This commission had a British counterpart, installed
in the War Office in London, and both American and British commissions sug-
gested the appointment of specific experts on art to the staffs of the military
commanders in the fields. These officers, known as Monuments, Fine Arts,
and Archives Officers (generally abbreviated to mfaa), were provided with ex-
haustive lists and maps indicating the location of the monuments and collec-
tions. The lists were the result of many months of devoted labor by American
scholars.

The first mpaa officers in Italy were attached to the headquarters of amgot
in Sicily. On the establishment of the Allied Control Commission (known as
the Acc), a Subcommission for Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives was
founded under the acc with authority over the entire artistic heritage of Italy
as long as it remained under direct Allied control. Throughout most of its
work this Subcommission was under the leadership of Major, later Lieutenant
Colonel, Ernest T. DeWald, Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton
University, an outstanding authority on mediaeval art and Italian painting.
He was assisted by a British Deputy Director, Maj. John B. Ward Perkins, a
classical archaeologist, now director of the British School in Rome. Another
MFAA officer was assigned to Fifth Army and still another to Eighth Army as
staff officers of the army axig, for each army commander had his own fairly
autonomous amg organization, guided only in the broadest sense by directives
from ACC in Naples (later in Rome). The rest of the mfaa officers were assigned
to the staffs of the regional commissioners of the various regional amg’s into
which Italy was to be divided, directly responsible to the acc. While these
regions, such as Campania, Apulia, Umbria, Tuscany, Lombardv, each con-
tained several Italian governmental provinces, they corresponded in a general
way to the basic regional divisions of the nation. I had the good fortune to
be the regional mf.a.a officer for Tuscany.

On the basis of material furnished by the Roberts Commission and by the
Harvard American Defense Group, as well as from Baedeker and the indis-
pensable twenty-four volume Gnida d'ltalia published by the Touring Club
Italiano, we published our own Lists of Protected Monuments, slender, pocket
handbooks with two or three regions in each booklet. Each contained a copy
of General Eisenhower's famous order to his commanders to protect cultural
treasures insofar as was possible in the progress of the war. This was followed

INTRODUCTION

by a specific order from Headquarters Allied Armies in Italy forbidding the
occupation of any monument on the list except under certain narrowly limited
conditions. Then there was an alphabetical list of the towns, their geographical
coordinates keyed to the military maps, and all their principal buildings and
collections of cultural importance listed. Our information about the location of
deposits of works of art was fairly vague at the time the lists were published in
Naples, in the absence of complete Italian government records available only
in Rome, but we included all deposits known to us. These pocket lists were
distributed to all commanders down to battalion level, and were extremely
helpful in controlling thoughtless damage by troops after a given area was
taken.

The duty of the army mfaa officers was to reach all important artistic objec-
tives as rapidly as the progress of military operations permitted, make a com-
plete survey of the condition of the monuments and collections in each town
or village, and report at once on their findings. While the original report was
addressed to the senior civil affairs officers of the amg of the appropriate army,
a copy went to acc for the information of the Subcommission and another copy
to the regional amg concerned for the action of the regional mfaa officer. The
plan worked very well, and these two officers, Maj. Norman Newton with
Eighth Army and Capt. Deane Keller of the Yale University Art School with
Fifth Army, spent all their time moving up with the troops and exploring
each newly liberated center. If a town had been only slightly damaged their
job was simple, but many Italian towns and cities had been devastated either
by the actual fighting or by the bombardments which preceded. Often the
Superintendency was situated in a provincial or regional capital which had not
yet been liberated. Thus the mfa.a officer had to contact local officials and ob-
tain labor for salvage work under fantastically unsettled conditions and often
under fire, in order to clear the rubble from buried paintings or sculpture, ex-
cavate precious books or documents buried under tons of wreckage, prop
masonry which seemed ready to fall, and protect in whatever manner possible
frescoes exposed to rain and sun. The provisions of the LisI of Protected Monu-
ments forbidding requisition of certain buildings had to be enforced, a matter
for considerable diplomacy under immediate post-combat conditions. Not ail
the solutions were in the book. But the tact and resourcefulness of these two
officers was equal to every situation, and they were able to prevent further dam-
age to many immensely important works of art.

Both officers spoke Italian fluently, made contact with local officials and
when the seat of a Superintendency was reached, thev cooperated with the
responsible superintendent in the most urgent projects of repair. In addition
to the usual precautions for the safety of deposits of works of art, the army

{ 6 }

INTRODUCTION

MFAA ofi&cers arranged for military guards to supplement the Italian custodians
wherever necessary to prevent looting and damage either by troops or civilians.
These military guards could ill be spared by the army, but were often main-
tained for considerable periods until normal conditions returned. Off Limits
signs excluding troops from protected buildings were liberally posted, usually
over the signature of the army commander or of General Alexander as com-
manding general of Allied Armies in Italy. In the main they proved quite
effective.

The regional mfaa officers were to maintain liaison with their counterparts
in the army amg, receive copies of those reports which concerned their regions,
and move up into the regions as soon as practicable in order to take over the
work where the army mfaa officers had left off. Permanent relations with the
Italian Superintendencies, long-term programs of repair to war-damaged
monuments, return of evacuated works of art from deposits to the museums
and churches — all these were to be the work of regional mfaa. To it fell the
long, slow job of the permanent repairs after army mfaa had departed with the
moving front. The repair work was always undertaken with one object: preven-
tion of further deterioration to war-damaged monuments of aesthetic or histori-
cal importance. No restoration was contemplated ; the replacement of missing
pieces, the completion of broken decorations, and the replastering and repaint-
ing could wait. We were only to repair the roofs so that rain and snow could
not endanger frescoes or altarpieces below the smashed tiles, consolidate broken
or shell-perforated masonry, replace shattered timbers and, in extreme cases,
excavate for decorative fragments and building materials in the ruins of hope-
lessly wrecked structures. Rebuilding of entirely destroyed portions was at-
tempted only when mere retaining walls would have cost very nearly as much.
The work was to be executed by the Superintendencies, but it was closelv
supervised by the regional officers, who decided which projects should be at-
tempted and which were either impossible or inadvisable. Furthermore, it was
the regional mfaa officers who had to obtain the release of strictly controlled
building materials, appropriations of Italian government funds, gasoline for
the Superintendency cars so that the officials could reach the often widely
separated monuments, permissions for them to travel in areas controlled by
the army, and a thousand other practical details. The regional officer was to
work in his area as long as the region itself remained under amg.

The plan was splendid, but in practice it gave rise to many difficulties. For
the regional mfaa officer there was always an intermediate period of waiting
and planning while assigned to a regional amg headquarters which had to re-
ceive army orders before it could move into the newly liberated and still army-
controlled areas of its own region. Tuscany was Region viii, and in late June

INTRODUCTION

1944 our headquarters, under the command of the regional commissioner, Col.
Robert G. Kirkwood, an extremely capable administrator with over thirty
years’ experience in the American army, was established in Orvieto. The beauti-
ful and famous town, on its huge flat-topped rock overlooking the valley of
the Pagha, was absolutely unscathed by the war. It was a joy to walk through
the vast interior of the black and white Gothic cathedral, or to stand in the
chapel frescoed by Signorelli with the heroic Last Judgment series. But it was,
alas, a fallow month with little else to do save cull lists of works of art out
of guidebooks and study and restudy the towns for which I was to be respon-
sible.

Both Fifth and Eighth Armies had already entered Tuscany. The region
was to be split between them. This meant that we had to learn two totally
different sets of regulations and customs, for nothing could be more different
than the personalities of the two senior civil affairs officers. Brig. Gen. Edgar
Erskine Hume for Fifth Army, Group Captain Benson of the raf for Eighth.
Although I had a driver with me — a friend. Franco Ruggenini, whom I had
known before the war in Mantua and had discovered in Naples quite by acci-
dent a few weeks before — I had no vehicle. An effort to obtain transportation
of any sort meant a long, and usually losing, struggle at the Region viii trans-
portation office. Furthermore, I was receiving no reports from either Fifth or
Eighth Army mfaa on what was happening to the monuments in Tuscany.

Every morning massive formations of four-engine bombers thundered up the
Paglia valley and over the cone of Mount Cetona on the horizon, marking
the boundary of Tuscany. All night the guns could be heard, their flashes mak-
ing a brilliant show against the dark sky. As I watched and listened I had fresh
in my mind the disasters of bomb-ravaged Naples: the shapeless wreckage of
all the Baroque decorations and Gothic tombs of Santa Chiara, the shattered
Quattrocento chapels of Santa Anna dei Lombardi, the dozens of ravaged
churches and palaces, and even more recently the devastation of Gaeta and
Terracina, Itri and Fondi, Velletri and Valmontone. I could imagine the same
fate befalling Tuscany, and in Orvieto, despite its beauty and quiet, I became
increasingly impatient.

In the meantime Captain Keller had been steadily progressing with Fifth
Army up through the southwestern part of Tuscany, the wild region of the
Maremma, sending in voluminous reports on its tiny hill towns, castles, Etrus-
can remains, and scattered altarpieces by Sienese Quattrocento painters.
Through an error at the Fifth Army amg message center, none of these reports
reached me until, weeks later, the mf.va Subcommission recopied them for my
information. Communications with Fifth Army headquarters were difficult-
impossible by telephone. Finally, waiting became unendurable and I resolved
to do some exploring of my own, with whatever transportation I could find.

CHAPTER II

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

O N June 13 I set out on my first journey. Under wartime conditions
the shortest trip had to be carefully calculated. Roads, worn to bedrock
by years of neglect and the subsequent weight of Allied trafl&c, had
in addition been mined by the Germans. Only the roughest repairs had been
made. Interminable traffic jams at by-passes and broken bridges meant hours
of waiting in line. Military trucks, jeeps, artillery, and tanks churned up a
dust so thick that the road was at times completely hidden. Twenty miles an
hour was a good average speed in the light British truck which I was forced
to use, being unable to get a jeep. But under such conditions I visited Chiusi,
Montepulciano, and Pienza. The damage to the archaeological museum in
Chiusi and to the roof of the cathedral in Pienza was offset by the almost com-
plete escape of Montepulciano, perhaps the most spectacular of the Tuscan hil l
cities. This cluster of mediaeval houses and Renaissance palaces is massed on
a rock towering more than a thousand feet above the Valdichiana, visible for
miles across the plains and hills, above the blue mirror of Lake Trasimeno.

Before long I acquired a battered jeep to which I was to become deeply at-
tached. In two years of service this curious vehicle had sustained both the
North African and Sicilian campaigns. Region \aii had received it from Sar-
dinia. Its windshield was shattered, it had only four, much worn, tires, its
radiator leaked, its springs were weak, its shock absorbers defective. It pos-
sessed neither mirrors nor canvas top, and its rattling body threatened momen-
tarily to disintegrate. Below the windshield appeared its name, “13 Lucky 13.”
“Lucky” acquired a certain fame in Tuscany. It carried bishops, priests, and
monks; princesses, countesses, and dukes; old peasant women and rich mer-
chants; superintendents, architects, directors, and inspectors; colonels and pri-
vates, black, white, brown, and yellow; a U.S. Senator and the Assistant Secre-
tary of War. Every kind of freight was loaded in it — sacks of flour or charcoal,
cheeses, turkeys, chickens, pigs, and lambs, dead and alive ; cement, plaster and
other materials for restoration; priceless manuscripts, Sansoni’s negatives for
the complete series of photographs of the Upper Church at Assisi, and even
such important paintings as Masaccio’s Si. Paul from the Pisa Carmine altar-
piece and Duccio’s Flight into Egypt and Presentation in the Temple from the
Maesta in Siena. Before its duties in Tuscany were over it had towed Grand
Duke Ferdinand, all in bronze, from the courtyard of the Uffizi into the public
square. Unfortunately the speedometer broke so many times that it was im-
possible to compute the mileage, but between the time I first rode in it in

i 9 }

INTRODUCTION

1944 our headquarters, under the command of the regional commissioner, Col.
Robert G. Kirkwood, an extremely capable administrator with over thirty
years’ experience in the American army, was established in Orvieto. The beauti-
ful and famous town, on its huge flat-topped rock overlooking the valley of
the Paglia, was absolutely unscathed by the war. It was a joy to walk through
the vast interior of the black and white Gothic cathedral, or to stand in the
chapel frescoed by Signorelli with the heroic Last Judgment series. But it was,
alas, a fallow month with little else to do save cull lists of works of art out
of guidebooks and study and restudy the towns for which I was to be respon-
sible.

Both Fifth and Eighth Armies had already entered Tuscany. The region
was to be split between them. This meant that we had to learn two totally
different sets of regulations and customs, for nothing could be more different
than the personalities of the two senior civil affairs officers. Brig. Gen. Edgar
Erskine Hume for Fifth Army, Group Captain Benson of the raf for Eighth.
Although I had a driver with me — a friend. Franco Ruggenini, whom I had
known before the war in Mantua and had discovered in Naples quite by acci-
dent a few weeks before — I had no vehicle. An effort to obtain transportation
of any sort meant a long, and usually losing, struggle at the Region \nii trans-
portation office. Furthermore, I was receiving no reports from either Fifth or
Eighth Army mfaa on what was happening to the monuments in Tuscany.

Every morning massive formations of four-engine bombers thundered up the
Pagha valley and over the cone of Mount Cetona on the horizon, marking
the boundary of Tuscany. All night the guns could be heard, their flashes mak-
ing a brilliant show against the dark sky. As I watched and listened I had fresh
in my mind the disasters of bomb-ravaged Naples: the shapeless wreckage of
all the Baroque decorations and Gothic tombs of Santa Chiara, the shattered
Quattrocento chapels of Santa Anna dei Lombardi, the dozens of ravaged
churches and palaces, and even more recently the devastation of Gaeta and
Terracina, Itri and Fondi, Velletri and Valmontone. I could imagine the same
fate befalling Tuscany, and in Orvieto, despite its beauty and quiet, I became
increasingly impatient.

In the meantime Captain Keller had been steadily progressing with Fifth
Army up through the southwestern part of Tuscany, the wild region of the
Maremma, sending in voluminous reports on its tiny hill towns, castles, Etrus-
can remains, and scattered altarpieces by Sienese Quattrocento painters.
Through an error at the Fifth Army amg message center, none of these reports
reached me until, weeks later, the mf.va Subcommission recopied them for my
information. Communications with Fifth Army headquarters were difficult —
impossible by telephone. Finally, waiting became unendurable and I resolved
to do some exploring of my own, with whatever transportation I could find.

{ 8 }

CHAPTER II

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

O N June 13 I set out on my first journey. Under wartime conditions
the shortest trip had to be carefully calculated. Roads, worn to bedrock
by years of neglect and the subsequent weight of Allied traffic, had
in addition been mined by the Germans. Only the roughest repairs had been
made. Interminable traffic jams at by-passes and broken bridges meant hours
of waiting in line. Military trucks, jeeps, artillery, and tanks churned up a
dust so thick that the road was at times completely hidden. Twenty miles an
hour was a good average speed in the light British truck which I was forced
to use, being unable to get a jeep. But under such conditions I visited Chiusi,
Montepulciano, and Pienza. The damage to the archaeological museum in
Chiusi and to the roof of the cathedral in Pienza was offset by the almost com-
plete escape of Montepulciano, perhaps the most spectacular of the Tuscan hill
cities. This cluster of mediaeval houses and Renaissance palaces is massed on
a rock towering more than a thousand feet above the Valdichiana, visible for
miles across the plains and hills, above the blue mirror of Lake Trasimeno.

Before long I acquired a battered jeep to which I was to become deeply at-
tached. In two years of service this curious vehicle had sustained both the
North African and Sicilian campaigns. Region viii had received it from Sar-
dinia. Its windshield was shattered, it had only four, much worn, tires, its
radiator leaked, its springs were weak, its shock absorbers defective. It pos-
sessed neither mirrors nor canvas top, and its rattling body threatened momen-
tarily to disintegrate. Below the windshield appeared its name, “13 Lucky 13.”
“Lucky” acquired a certain fame in Tuscany. It carried bishops, priests, and
monks; princesses, countesses, and dukes; old peasant women and rich mer-
chants; superintendents, architects, directors, and inspectors; colonels and pri-
vates, black, white, brown, and yellow; a U.S. Senator and the Assistant Secre-
tary of War. Every kind of freight was loaded in it — sacks of flour or charcoal,
cheeses, turkeys, chickens, pigs, and lambs, dead and alive; cement, plaster and
other materials for restoration; priceless manuscripts, Sansoni’s negatives for
the complete series of photographs of the Upper Church at Assisi, and even
such important paintings as Masaccio's Si. Paul from the Pisa Carmine altar-
piece and Duccio’s Flight mto Egypt and Presentation in the Temple from the
Maesta in Siena. Before its duties in Tuscany were over it had towed Grand
Duke Ferdinand, all in bronze, from the courtyard of the Uffizi into the public
square. Unfortunately the speedometer broke so many times that it was im-
possible to compute the mileage, but between the time I first rode in it in

{ 9 }

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

July 1944 and the rainy day in August 1945 when I bade it farewell in Salzburg,
“Lucky” must have covered between thirty and forty thousand miles.

Franco Ruggenini drove the jeep superbly, with a real genius for negotiating
the infernal military traffic. He was, moreover, a hardworking assistant and
a loyal friend. During July we traveled from Orvieto to the principal towns of
southern Tuscany, largely untouched by the war. I shall never forget the first
visit to Cortona, which has always seemed to me the quintessence of Tuscany.
The few Renaissance buildings and severe Gothic churches above the streets
of intact twelfth and thirteenth century houses rise, in long masses of grey
sandstone and brown roof-tile, high above the Valdichiana to the summit
guarded by the gigantic fourteenth century castle. Halfway up from the valley
floor stands Francesco di Giorgio’s greatest work, the church of the Madonna
del Calcinaio. The war, raging in bitterly contested Arezzo twenty miles away,
had not disturbed the peace that lay upon the cypresses and olive trees and
upon the austere perfection of the architecture.

We learned to know well the Via Cassia, that climbs from the Umbrian
border through desolate lands to the strange castle-town of Radicofani, more
than three thousand feet above the sea. From this grim peak one looks across
a succession of arid ridges, west to the cone of Mount Amiata, south to the
blue hills of Latium, north to where on clear days the Apennines above Florence
are visible a hundred miles away. We explored the roads through the chestnut
forests of Mount Amiata, where here and there a disemboweled tank had been
left behind by the tide of war, and along the barren pastures of the Orcia val-
ley to the hovels of Castiglione d’Orcia and Rocca d’Orcia clustered around their
castle ruins — inspecting Sienese primitives and Della Robbia reliefs surprisingly
little damaged by the war. We visited the towered city of Montalcino on its
ridge, last stand of the Sienese Republic against the Florentine invader, and San
Quirico d’Orcia, shorn of its tallest tower but with its sculpture intact. But the
climax of these early days of exploration was the trip through the succession
of brown brick towns along the poplar-bordered course of the Arbia, many of
them wrecked by heavy fighting, up to where across the ridges the miracle of
Siena, its towers and spires flashing in the sunset, rose against the sky.

Once in the town, I w'alked the ancient streets with their Gothic arcades and
windows, brick walls and travertine carvings, looked across the Campo to the
Palazzo Pubblico, climbed to the cathedral. Only a shellburst here and there,
scarring an occasional bit of wall with flying fragments, showed that the war
had passed over the city. The Sienese, who have always called their town the
City of the Virgin, believed firmly that the Madonna herself had intervened
to save it. Be that as it may, I walked the streets all evening, giving especial

{ 10 }

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

thanks for the preservation of this enchanted web of history from the fate that
had overwhelmed Viterbo and the shining towns of the Alban hills.

Yet the sound of not-so-distant artillery was a firm undertone to all the chat-
ter and noise of the crowded streets. And it was in Siena that two alarming re-
ports reached me from Captain Keller on conditions in San Gimignano.

With its marvelous crown of mediaeval towers, the best preserved skyline of
any town in Tuscany, San Gimignano is regally enthroned above the blue-green
valley of the Elsa. Captain Keller’s detailed reports told of the terrible havoc
wrought by two days of shelling by the Germans with 280 millimeter projectiles.
(I was luckily ignorant of the uninformed report which had appeared in Time
that the city and all its works of art had been totally destroyed.) While the
towers seemed to have stood up very well under the attack, roofs everywhere
had given way and many walls had been shattered. The roof of Sant’ Agostino
had been damaged, exposing to the weather the enchanting fresco series of
the Life of St. Augustine by Benozzo Gozzoli. In the same church the altar
of San Bartolo by Benedetto da Maiano had been spared. A shell had crashed
against the chapel of Santa Fina in the Collegiata and by some special miracle
had missed all the treasures the chapel contained. The two frescoes of the Vi-
sion and the Funeral of Santa Fina, by Ghirlandaio, were unscratched and only
a few pieces of the plaster architecture surrounding the altarpiece by Benedetto
da Maiano were snapped off. The Palazzo del Podesta had been heavily shelled
and the windows and roof smashed, endangering the frescoes within, partic-
ularly the huge Maesta by Lippo Memmi. The little museum of the Collegiata
had been completely unroofed, but the contents had been previously placed in
safety by the clergy.

But the chief tragedy had befallen the nave of the Collegiata. Shells directed
at the nearby tower of the Palazzo del Podesta, which the Germans with good
reason believed was a French artillery observation post, had exploded all over
the roof, destroying more than half of the tiled surface, shattering beams and
crosspieces, and tearing great holes in the stone vaulting of the Romanesque
nave. The unique fresco series by Barna da Siena had been badly hit. A 280
had gone right through the Crucifixion, the most dramatic and moving of the
whole series, carrying away a circular section a yard in diameter. Two shells
had pierced the Marriage in Cana, tearing out nearly half of it. Benozzo Goz-
zoli’s St. Sebastian on the inner wall of the facade had been splashed with frag-
ments, and a shell had pierced the Paradise of Taddeo di Bartolo. So far my
work in Tuscany, for all its inconveniences, had been a pleasure trip. Now I
was faced with a major disaster beside which the damage at Pienza and San
Quirico seemed trifling.

( n }

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

With the cooperation of Colonel Michie (then scao of the French Corps),
and the help of Capt. Sidney Waugh, the cao of San Gimignano, Captain Keller
had in the five days since the liberation of the town begun an active progr am
of salvage and repair. The commtmal engineer, Simonelli, had already been
set to work on the damaged roof of Sant’ Agostino. The Collegiata had been
closed to visitors; Off Limits signs in French and English had been posted on the
monuments; and the unwilling clergy had been directed and assisted in the
salvage of the precious vestments exposed to the weather in damaged sacristies.
I was naturally anxious, however, for the superintendent of monuments and
galleries, Raffaelle Niccoli, to reach the town as quickly as possible to assume
direction of the work and make plans for permanent repairs. An hour after
I read Captain Keller’s report we set out for San Gimignano. A brief stop at
Colle di Val d’Elsa, whose magnificent upper town on its high rock had escaped
the heavy damage that had laid waste the artistically unimportant lower town,
was our only delay.

San Gimignano appeared from across the fields to be intact but the spectacle
on arrival was terrifying. Glass, smashed bricks, tiles and stones and jagged
shell fragments littered the streets. Great holes yawned in mediaeval house
walls. Ragged eaves betokened shattered roofs. The two portals in the severe
facade of the Collegiata, posted Off Limits in large, bilingual signs, were closed,
so we entered through the cloister, whose graceful arcades had suffered severely
from shellfire. The church floor was covered ankle deep with rubble. Shafts
of sunlight shone into the nave through the gigantic hole where the shells had
destroyed the vaulting. Not a fragment of glass remained in any of the win-
dows. But already the entire right aisle where the Barna frescoes were had been
roped off so that careless feet would not destroy the salvageable pieces of fresco
that lay under the rubble. Of the frescoes, the Crucifixion was badly mutilated.
Barna’s talent for the dramatic and the diabohcal had shone particularly in the
group of Roman soldiers who stood under the cross, gloating over the gar-
ments of Christ. This group had been carried away almost entirely by the shell
that pierced the wall, and the surrounding areas of the fresco were bulging
ominously outward, loosened by the concussion. Moreover, the great blocks of
masonry to which the plaster had been applied were weakened all around the
hole by the explosion and were about to fall, carrying with them still more
areas of the fresco. The condition of the Marriage in Cana was similarlv threat-
ening. Consolidation of the masonry was urgent. Niccoli therefore decided to
send his restorer, Dalmas, with provisions for a long stay, to undertake the
work, under the supendsion of Prof. Enzo Carli, director of the Siena gallery.

Tired of the c-rations we usually brought with us, we decided after this un-
happy morning to try our luck on a hot lunch at the Albergo Cisterna. To our

{ 12 }

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

astonishment the place looked as if nothing had happened. When we emerged
onto the terrace restaurant which looks over the countryside it was just as
I had seen it before the war, crowded with the same elderly English spinsters
enjoying the food and the wonderful view. The only additions were a sprinkling
of French officers and French wag’s. We had an excellent lunch.

We spent the afternoon examining the damaged monuments of the town,
particularly the frescoes in the Collegiata. It was apparent that the shaken
masonry would have to be dismantled, stone by stone, the stones numbered,
and rebuilt, and that the bulging frescoes would have to be anchored to the
walls with injections of plaster in order to prevent collapse. At the same time
the rubble on the floor must be picked up with meticulous care to save whatever
could be pieced together from the fragments of the missing group. With the
aid of photographs these pieces could be identified and reattached insofar as
possible in their original positions. The new roofing was to be left to Engineer
Simonelli, who had already begun work on it, but the reconstruction of the
vaulting of the Collegiata could safely be deferred for a while. The one prob-
lem thus far insoluble was the provision of any sort of covering for the empty
windows. No glass was obtainable, and the mediaeval windows were so small
that even a partial covering of opaque materials would have made the interior
too dark for any work of restoration to be carried on inside. It might be weeks
before the electric current could be restored in that sector.

Actually our troubles at San Gimignano continued all winter. It proved
almost impossible to get tiles to cover the roof of the Collegiata, and sometimes
I entered the church to find parts of the floor ankle deep in water. Not until
December was the roof completed. But on the evening of December 22 a high
wind precipitated an alarming situation which we had not at first suspected.
The Trecento frescoes had been painted right over the three original aisle win-
dows which had been blocked up by flimsy walls of brick. One of these walls,
severely shaken by the shelling, fell inward under tire force of the wind, car-
rying with it a large section of the already badly damaged Flight into Egypt,
and the other two windows, each of which contained sections of four different
scenes, began to bulge horribly. Restoration, which had started with the patch-
ing of the Crucifixion but had been stopped on account of the intense cold and
dampness, had to begin again. The masonry of the windows was replaced from
the outside and the threatened frescoes propped from within, but the final
solution of this exasperating problem was achieved only some time after the
departure of amg.

After the afternoon’s work, and assurances from Captain Waugh that Niccoli
and Dalmas could start their operations at once, we returned to Siena. The

{ B }

SIENA AND ITS PROVINCE

following morning Franco and I started on another journey, to the ancient
Etruscan citadel of Volterra, the principal town of the southern half of Pisa
Province, and not more than twenty miles from Colle di Val d’Elsa, thence to
Massa Marittima in Grosseto Province, and from there to remote sites in the
hills west of Siena. As we traveled the sunlit road from Massa Marittima we
often came upon burnt-out tanks or ruined vehicles, abandoned to the quiet of
the forests, which in many places were charred brown by the flash of artillery
and overhung with the stench of death.

At a turning in the road we unexpectedly emerged on the flank of a mountain
to behold a view of such beauty as I have seldom seen. It was a spectacle of
magical, almost supernatural perfection. Unusually bright and clear, the sky
arched over a world of hazeless hills, each summit sharp and palpable in the
glassy air. Half of Tuscany lay before us. On the other side of the German
lines, more than sixty miles away, the mountains above Florence cut the
horizon. Even farther to the west the phenomenal clarity of the atmosphere
rendered the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps beyond Carrara distinctly visible,
while the broad bulk of the Pratomagno above Arezzo to the east was dappled
by the blue shadows of the motionless clouds. Set in the middle was Siena,
easily ten miles from us, but seeming almost at our hand — the flashing cam-
panile of the cathedral, the empty marble arch of the unfinished facade of the
Duomo Nuovo, the slender Torre di Mangia, all perfectly distinct. No slightest
sign betrayed the existence of desperate warfare in the midst of this enchanted
landscape.

{ M }

CHAPTER III

THE PICTURES OF FLORENCE

An unlooked for circumstance brought me on July 27 to Eighth Army
j \ headquarters, two hot encampments near Castiglione del Lago, leaving
jL Franco at regional headquarters in Orvieto. Major Newton had pro-
posed that I be attached on temporary duty to Eighth Army amg so as to be
among the earliest of the amg officers in Florence. He was to enter the city
with the first team, and I was to come up with the so-called “first follow-up
party,” a few hours or a few days later. The opportunity of being able to get
to work in Florence at once, backed by Eighth Army authority, outweighed
all other considerations.

It is only with difficulty that I can now convince myself that my stay at
Castiglione del Lago lasted only four days. Time dragged. Since at any moment
orders might come for us to move up to Florence, Group Captain Benson ad-
vised us to take no trips that might cause us to be away when the call came.
Major Newton had scarcely left his tent in days, and the atmosphere of tension
and suspense on all sides was almost intolerable. Capt. Roger Ellis, a brilliant
young archivist from tire Records Office in London, with a wide knowledge
of art, was Major Newton’s assistant. We three were to form the mf.\a team
in the early days of the liberation of Florence.

The happy escapes of Rome and Siena, the restricted character of the dam-
age to southern Tuscany, and Hitler’s declaration of Florence as an open city
had lulled everyone into the belief that Florence would be taken intact. The
only urgent problem, therefore, seemed that of preventing the occupation of
structures whose artistic contents could be damaged by troops. In anticipation
of the great moment, we were to prepare an e.xtended list of all the palaces in
Florence that were not under any circumstances to be requisitioned, and an-
other of those which we might relinquish for use as offices, or other special
purposes. This was done at the request of 71 Garrison, the occupying military
unit, whose Town Major (the officer responsible for all requisitions of real
estate) had read in the Ust of Protected Monuments that the entire city of
Florence was to be considered a work of art of the first order, and that no
requisitions were to be made without the authority of mf.va officers.

Fortunately for the Florentine monuments, the Town Major took this phrase
literally and wanted an exhaustive and precise list. We therefore sat day after
day under the tree before Major Newton’s tent combing our guidebooks and
our memories. Thus while Captain Keller was working valiantly to salvage

{ 15 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

the great Labronica Library in Livorno, village after village on the outskirts
of Florence was falling to Allied troops with no mfaa officer on hand.

It was thought that the question of the deposits of Florentine art could be
solved only when we made direct contact with the Superintendency of Florence,
which everyone expected in short order. We had been provided with a list
of these deposits by the officials of the Ministry in Rome, very shortly after
the liberation of the capital, but we had also been told that, although almost
the entire contents of the Florentine museums had originally been evacuated
to castles and villas surrounding the city. Hitler’s declaration had led the
Florentine Superintendency to move them all back again. Therefore, on the
basis of the latest information available at the disorganized Ministry, the list
was to be disregarded. The events of the next three weeks were to show how
mistaken the officials in Rome were, and how erroneous was the policy of
waiting for the capture of Florence rather than moving up with the troops.
Neither the Allies nor the Germans nor the Florentines themselves were cor-
rect in their predictions regarding the fate of the city.

At breakfast on the morning of July 31 the officers’ mess of Eighth Army
AMG was electrified by an astonishing announcement by the British Broad-
casting Company. Outside Florence, in the midst of the fiercest fighting of
the war in Italy, a correspondent had stumbled unawares on a group of the
greatest masterpieces from the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. Works by Raphael,
Botticelli, Giotto, Cimabue, Duccio lay covered with dust, unprotected, one
against another in a villa in one of the hottest sections of the front, rocked
by artillery and small arms fire. The policy of inaction came to an abrupt close.
I was at once ordered by the Group Captain to proceed to the area, take charge
of the deposit in the name of Eighth Army, and come back and report. I was
provided with a jeep and a driver and in a few minutes I departed, armed and
helmeted, for the front. I was at first under the impression that the villa was
at San Michele in Torri, a tiny village near Florence which had figured largely
in the earlier portion of the broadcast, being the scene of the most savage
hand-to-hand fighting. I had moreover chosen a road which looked clear on
the situation map at Eighth Army headquarters but which later turned out
not to have been captured. Finally, I had rushed off with only enough cloth-
ing and equipment for a day’s trip. I was to regret all tliree of these errors.

Rapidly the familiar places went by, in unusually light traffic. We passed
Cortona on its promontory, with the morning sun just catching the tips of
its roofs and towers; then the slender towers of the castle of Montecchio, like
a detail from a Fra Angelico background; then the damaged town of Cas-
tiglion Fiorentino, still perfectly grouped around the summit of its dome-
shaped hill; then Arezzo, around which all traffic was still rerouted; then the

{ 16 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

long Arno valley, dominated by the Pratomagno from which came the steady
thunder of German artillery. We circumnavigated the ruins of the poor little
village of Levane, completely blown up by the Germans, sped through the in-
dustrial cities of Montevarchi and San Giovanni Valdarno, and headed for
our crossroad beyond Figline. Before this town, however, we were turned back
by heavy artillery fire and the disquieting fact that neither the town nor the
road had yet been taken. We thus had to choose wild roads through the hills,
passing through the territories of four different British and Empire divisions,
inquiring at each divisional headquarters about the mihtary situation.

The last stretch led us through the worst country I have ever traveled, but
somehow we came out onto the Via Cassia near Tavarnelle and found our
way by nightfall to the Eighth Anmy press camp at San Donato in Poggio.
The hills beyond, sloping down toward Florence, shook continuously with
gunfire in the darkness while their ridges stood out fitfully against the constant
flashes of the artillery. At the press camp I met the novelist, Eric Linklater, and
Vaughan Thomas, the bbc correspondent. That night they told me the story
of how they had run onto the villa and its incredible contents.

Contrary to the reports of the authorities in Rome, the great works of art
from the Florentine galleries and churches were still outside the city. We found
later on that there were no fewer than thirty-seven of these deposits, only some
ten or twelve of which had been evacuated to Florence before the Allied
bombing and strafing of the roads and the German refusal to provide either
transportation or fuel made any further movement impossible. The greater
part of the entire art treasure of Florence was therefore still in these hilltop
refuges, ideal for protection against bombardment yet conspicuous targets for
artillery. Major Linklater and Vaughan Thomas had seen four of the deposits,
the castle of Montegufoni (a former Acciaioli stronghold long the property
of the Sitwells), the Villa Bossi-Pucci at Montagnana, and the Villa Guicciar-
dini and Castello Guidi at Poppiano. All of these were within sight of each
other and of San Michele in Torri, where the battle was still raging.

At Montegufoni and Montagnana were stored a series of the finest pictures
from the Ufiizi and the Pitti, some altarpieces from Florentine churches, and
almost the entire contents of the Museo San Marco and the picture gallery' of
the Accademia — approximately a fifth of the paintings in Florence. In the
two deposits at Poppiano were the hundreds of pictures exhibited at the Mostra
del Cinquecento, the ill-fated show held for so short a period in Florence in
June 1940. Since arrangements for the return of the pictures had been cut
short by the war, every important sixteenth century Tuscan picture from
Italian collections, and indeed many from foreign countries as well, filled
these two buildings. In addition to the custodians who had accepted legal re-

i 17 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

sponsibility for these incalculably precious treasures, an official from the Super-
intendency had come up from Florence on foot to supervise the four villas and
hand them over to the advancing Allies. He was Prof. Cesare Fasola, librarian
of the Uffizi Gallery, as devoted, selfless, and fearless an official as I was ever
to meet in Italy.

Early in the morning of August i we started off for Montegufoni, on a wind-
ing road with wonderful views into a landscape of endless low hills, each
crowned with a villa or a group of houses surrounded by cypresses. The land-
scape, for all its resemblance to the frescoes of Gozzoli, vibrated incessantly
to the sound of the guns around Florence. Montegufoni, an almost exact minia-
ture of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, was extended in the broad style of
the Tuscan Seicento and set in magnificent Baroque gardens and massed
cypresses. The villa was then occupied by the First Battalion, Mahratta Light
Infantry, Eighth Indian Division. Less than three miles away stood the gutted
wreck of San Michele in Torri, the sun shining through its shell perforations.

During that day, as Professor Fasola led us about the incredible collection
at Montegufoni, the hillside shook with the thunder of the British guns placed
all around us, and an occasional German shell screamed overhead to explode
nearby among the vineyards and cypresses. At every staircase in the villa Indian
sentries, black, quiet, and immaculately uniformed, snapped to attention. The
custodian turned a huge key in the Baroque door of the salone off the courtyard,
the sunlight streamed into a dark, vaulted hall and fell on the Primavera of
Botticelli leaning against the wall. The high shutters were then opened, and
the room was seen to be filled with pictures, lining the walls two and three deep
and leaning against a rack built in the center. On the left of the doorway An-
drea del Sarto’s Annunciation from the Pitti stood in all its harmony of muted
color, the angel gazing quietly upward at Mary against the tranquil architec-
ture and the Florentine landscape. Farther down the wall rose the majestic
figure of Giotto's Madonna from the Uffizi, seated on her marble throne, her
gold background glowing in the half-light. Over the tops of other pictures
rose the still Byzantine head of the Cimabue Madonna. Down the line of care-
fully stacked pictures I could make out the Supper at Emmaus by Pontormo,
Rubens’ Nymphs and Satyrs, and an Enthroned Madonna by Botticelli. Still
farther the sunlight touched the armor and spears of Paolo Uccello’s Battle of
San Romano. Although we did not know it, the undulating fields of San
Romano, scarcely twenty miles away down the Arno valley, were at that
moment the scene of another and very different type of battle, with little
chivalry or armor and unlimited quantities of barbed wire and high explosives.

In the same room stood Raphael’s Madonna del Baldacchino from the Pitti
and the Descent from the Cross, from the Uffizi, by Perugino and Filippino

( 18 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

Lippi. Lying on a huge table in the adjoining room was Botticelli’s Coronation
of the Virgin. Everywhere were stacked primitives from the Accademia: Ma-
donnas, Crucifixions, saints, huge altarpieces with gilded pinnacles. In mal-
odorous contrast to the chaste art of Fra Angelico was the unmistakable
evidence that the Germans had used the dark corridor containing eight of
his pictures as a latrine. Room after room was jammed with pictures, and
in the last and largest lay Ghirlandaio’s circular Adoration of the Magi. The
Germans had used it as a table top, and had answered Fasola’s request that
they remove their bottle and glasses by flicking a sheath knife into the pic-
ture. It pierced the sky, but it could just as easily have cut away some of
the heads. The same room contained the important series of Dugento Crosses
from the Accademia. Finally we were led into a smaller room off the entrance
court, one wall of which was almost filled by the immense Rucellai Madonna
from Santa Maria Novella, an awesome presence in the dim chamber.

A description of these pictures would constitute a history of Italian painting.
There were 246 of them, representing every period and almost every painter.
They were in immediate danger, for these deposits were all pathetically ex-
posed to shellfire. The promptness of Major General Russell, the divisional
commander, in placing a guard upon the pictures at once, under combat con-
ditions, was beyond praise, and his thoroughness as well as the traditional dis-
cipline of the Indians insured that no damage was done to the collections by
Allied troops. Nonetheless, only the further progress of the exasperatingly
slow Eighth Army advance through the Tuscan hills could save the pictures
from the constant menace of destruction.

Professor Fasola had come up from Florence, on foot, without any German
permit, during the last days of the occupation. Until constant shellfire made
movement on the roads impossible, he had gone from one deposit to the next
constantly looking after the condition of every room and every picture. Ger-
man service and headquarters units had been orderly and had obeyed the Off
Limits signs over Kesselring’s signature (furnished by Professor Heydenreich,
the last director of the German Art Historical Institute in Florence, and an
official of the German Knnstschutz organization). In the course of the retreat,
however, these units had been replaced by paratroopers and SS groups of the
utmost brutality. They had committed numerous depredations about the coun-
tryside, had broken open the doors of the rooms that sheltered the paintings,
scattered pictures and furniture about, and had threatened over and over to
set fire to everything. More than once Professor Fasola himself had kept the
soldiers from the pictures. In addition, the lower portions of the castle were
swarming with pitiable refugees from Signa, Lastra a Signa, Montelupo, and
other towns where the heavy fighting was now going on. Under such

{ 19 )

con-

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

ditions Fasola had to maintain order and some semblance of cleanliness
throughout the enormous collection.

Yet conditions at Montagnana were even worse. Here Fasola had arrived
from Florence to find a scene of complete desolation. The villa was deserted,
its custodian and his family driven away by the Germans. On the floor, or piled
loosely against the wall, covered with layers of filth, lay only a few of the nearly
three hundred pictures that had been housed there. The upper rooms of the
house were filled with the furniture which had been systematically smashed
by the Germans until not a table leg remained in one piece. The wreckage
was adorned with the usual German accompaniment of human excrement.
The other pictures were gone, 297 of them — Giovanni Bellini’s Pieta from the
Uf&zi, Botticelli’s Pallas and the Centaur, five paintiugs by Piero di Cosimo
and four altarpieces by Fihppo Lippi, the two tiny Labors of Hercules by Pol-
laiuolo, Signorelli’s Crucifixion, Roger van der Weyden’s 'Entombment, all
from the Uffizi, and from the Pitti Palace Pontormo’s Martyrdom of St. Mau-
rice and the Theban Legion, and Tintoretto’s 'Venus, Amor, and Vulcan, to
mention only a few of the most outstanding. At one blow at least an eighth
of the most prized contents of the Uffizi and the Pitti had vanished. One re-
members almost with amusement the hue and cry when the Mona Lisa dis-
appeared from the Louvre, or when Watteau’s LTndi-Qerent was stolen. Never
in modern history had there been such a sack as this. Worse, owing to the
proximity of Montagnana to Florence these pictures had been brought to the
villa in padded vans without boxes or crates. The Germans therefore had
moved them away uncrated, in military trucks. The state of the remaining
rooms and the way the few pictures left had been tossed about, together with
the fact that some of the most important things, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s
Presentation in the Temple had been abandoned, gave small hope that the
paintings had been taken by anyone who understood them or knew how to
handle them. The unit responsible was, as we later discovered, the 562nd In-
fantry Division under the command of General Greiner.

The full narrative of what had happened at Montagnana we reconstructed
only months later, when we came into possession of the archives of the German
Kunstschutz. While we were coming up from the south, working in the liber-
ated areas of Tuscany, the devoted Professor Heydenreich, who under the
Kunstschutz had charge of the protection of monuments and works of art in
Tuscany and of whom we heard nothing but good, had intervened with the
Militarfommandantur for military transport and fuel so that the contents of
some of the deposits of the Mugello, at the foot of the Gothic Line, could be
brought back to Florence. Furthermore, when it became necessary for the
Germans to reopen the abandoned railway tunnel at Incisa in the Valdarno

{ 20 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

just north of Figline, it was Heydenreich who aided the Superintendency in
the withdrawal of the contents, which included, among other things, the
bronze doors of the baptistery of Florence.

These transports had had to stop, because in the end neither the Germans nor
the Italian Fascist military units would provide any more transportation or
gasoline; indeed, since February the better of the two trucks that the Super-
intendency possessed had been requisitioned by the Germans. Nevertheless,
on June 15, 1944, an order was issued by the Fascist Ministry of Education in
Padua^ for all the principal works of art of Siena and Florence to be transferred
at once to northern Italy. Professor Anti, the general director, was charged
with its execution, and he came to Florence on June 18 for that purpose. At
a memorable meeting in Palazzo Pitti, attended by all the chief Superintendency
persoimel and by the German military authorities. Anti was convinced that it
was materially impossible to carry out his orders, for the Germans declared
themselves unable to provide any trucks or gasoline, and the Italians had none.
It was the unanimous agreement of those present that the works of art should
stay where they were or, in case of direst necessity, should be brought to Flor-
ence. An official report made to us by Comm. Giovanni Poggi, the revered
superintendent for the provinces of Florence, Pistoia, and Arezzo, preserves
the story of the succeeding events:

“On July 4, 1944, I was called by Counsellor Metzner of the Militdr\om-
mandantur, who asked me if there were any works of art in the villa of Mon-
tagnana so important that they should be transported, for security reasons,
beyond the Apennines. A little surprised by the abrupt question, I answered
that there were indeed works of art of great importance at Montagnana, com-
ing from the galleries and museums of the State, but that according to agree-
ments previously made between the General Direction of Fine Arts and the
office of Colonel Langsdorff" it was decided, as in the case of the other deposits,
to remove nothing, unless in case of urgent danger, and then only to transport
the paintings to Florence and not beyond the Apennines.

“The counsellor replied, ‘Then you refuse our offer,’ and I answered, ‘We
do not refuse it, indeed we are most grateful for it; we accept it in case it be-
comes necessary to transport these works to Florence.' I immediately informed
the German consul, Wolf, of this conversation. A few days later he communi-
cated to me that he had been advised by a mihtary unit that 257 paintings
had been taken by truck from the deposit of Montagnana to a village twenty
kilometers south of Modena, a village which later information identified as
Marano. I expressed at once my shock at a transport which had taken place
without our knowledge and without our help, so much so that Consul Wolf,

^ Seat of the Republican Fascist government.

"Head of the Kitnstschittz. German equivalent of our mfaa.

i 21 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

much impressed, deemed it advisable to bring Colonel Langsdorff immediately
from Verona to Florence in order to take charge of the affair. Langsdorff ar-
rived in fact on July 17 and I informed him of everything, asking him to try
to find out at once where the precious paintings had gone and, as soon as pos-
sible, to bring them back to Florence.

“In the meantime I had been able to determine that the transport of the
paintings had taken place in the first days of July, perhaps the second or third,
that is before the interview with Counsellor Metzner which too\ place the
fourth [italics Poggi’s]. Langsdorff asked me for a memorandum with a list
of the pictures w'hich were at Montagnana; when, however, I brought it to
the Hotel Excelsior where the Colonel had been staying — and this was the
nineteenth of July — I found that he had left Florence a few hours before. In
fact, that afternoon the German military and civilian authorities began to
leave the city.

“In a letter of July 20 I was therefore able to inform Prof. Carlo Anti, Gen-
eral Director of Fine Arts at Padua, of what had happened. . . .”

The same Germans who declared on June 18 that they had no trucks to give
were able on July 2 to transport 297 pictures, some of them enormous altar-
pieces, without the approval, help, or even knowledge of the Superintendency.
What neither Poggi nor Anti knew was that Langsdorff, on the same day
as his solemn agreement with the Italians in the Palazzo Pitti, wired to the Ger-
man Military Government headquarters, for the information of the SS
Commanding General Wolff, that he was taking personal charge of all deposits
and directing evacuation measures by German troops!

Montagnana was, at the moment of my first visit, under enemy shellfire, so
we proceeded from Montegufoni to Poppiano in the intense noon heat. Here
the Villa Guicciardini had received a direct shell hit on one corner, reducing
to shambles one of the principal rooms. The New Zealand soldiers here w'ere
by no means so meticulous as the Indians and had knocked down Pontormo’s
Visitation from Carmignano, so that when the shell burst, the picture received
the full weight of the falling rubble from the crumpled upper floor. There-
after they tramped over die altarpiece with their hobnailed boots, grinding
the plaster and brick dust into the surface of the picture. It is a tribute to the
durability of Cinquecento panel painting that there was anything left. The
day before my arrival Vaughan Thomas had labored with Fasola to clear off
the rubble and lift the damaged masterpiece to comparative safety. The pic-
ture seemed in frightful condition. Parts of it were unrecognizable. Appar-
ently the plaster had been ground into the color, and in other places the color
removed to lay bare the underlying gesso. But later the delicate cleaning in the
Gabinetto dei Restawl showed that only a few portions of the surface, mostly
in the drapery, had been really badly damaged. The ground-in dirt was care-

{ 22 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

fully washed off and the varnish removed to show that the plaster and dust had
not penetrated to the pigment and that the surface was only here and there
disfigured by deep gouges.

In the same room was Rosso Fiorentino’s Descent from the Cross, whose ab-
sence I had noticed in Vol terra ten days before, very dusty from the shellburst
and also slightly scratched. Even more impressive in the middle of all
the rubble, dirt, and disorder of the villa was the haunting beauty of Pontormo’s
uninjured Deposition from Santa Felicita in Florence, whose grief-stricken
figures seemed to soar above the desolation in an unearthly realm of silver light
and rose and green shadows. The visitors who came in such hundreds to see
the Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio would have
been most surprised if they could have beheld the paintings which form the
walls of that little jewel box, scattered about the chapel of the Villa Guicciar-
dini, some pushed to the floor by the New Zealanders.

I now made the acquaintance of a man who was to be of help throughout
my stay in Tuscany, a member of the British Military Police, Captain Roberson.
He had appeared with Italian civilian police guards, already requested by
Vaughan Thomas, and together we all began the long job of moving the pic-
tures out of the damaged room and into a place of greater safety. Leaving
Captain Roberson and Professor Fasola at the villa, 1 later went down the hill
to the Castello Guidi, where as yet no disasters had occurred, save for two small
and unimportant sixteenth century canvases which had been slashed by a New
Zealand soldier. It was a relief to walk through undamaged rooms, but the
appearance of security soon proved to be illusory. The main tower of the
castle was being used as the observation post for an artillery battalion attached
to the New Zealand division, directing all fire in the area.

I immediately conferred with the battalion commander, who advised me
to try to evacuate the pictures at once. As soon as the Germans discovered the
OP, he stated, the village would be plastered. In the early evening Vaughan
Thomas and I visited the neighboring Indian Brigade headquarters, where
the operations officer at first promised us trucks and m.en. onlv to tell us later
that we could not use the roads, as an attack was to be launched over them
that evening. So the pictures had to be left where they were. As luck would
have it, however, the New Zealanders left the following day, and no shell ever
hit Castello Guidi.

We were all deeply concerned with the problem of guarding these deposits
to prevent any repetition of the thoughtless damage caused bv the New Zea-
landers. Captain Roberson's Italian police would prevent anv harm from civilian
marauders, but a military guard was essential. This had to come from a head-
quarters higher than the continually shifting divisions. I therefore wrote

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PICTURES OF FLORENCE

a secret letter for Vaughan Thomas to present next morning to the aide-de-
camp to Lieutenant General Leese, the Eighth Army commander, whose tiny
encampment was on a hillside near San Donato in Poggio. In this rather un-
conventional letter, entirely out of military channels, I requested guards not
only for the liberated deposits but for those which might be found later, and
supplied a list of all those we knew anything about, with approximate map
references.

Late though it was, I had to return to Castiglione del Lago that night and
report to Major Newton and Group Captain Benson. The urgency of the prob-
lem of the deposits was far beyond anything we had yet encountered in Tus-
cany, even the disaster at San Gimignano. I wanted to be detached from the
Florence team, which could perfectly well be handled by two oflEcers, be
assigned the job of the deposits, and be the first to reach each one before there
was time for much damage by troops. I could then make the reports, set the
guards, and take any measures possible for safeguarding the Florentine treas-
ures.

After a late supper at the press camp the driver and I, tired to the bone, set
out on the ninety-mile trip. The evening was wonderfully cool and clear, and
a high moon, almost at the full, compensated for the fact that we could use no
lights in this combat zone. The events of the past two days, combined with
apprehension over the fate of the deposits, filled my tired brain with a fantastic
confusion of images as the Via Cassia swept us over the Florentine hills, past
the silent, deserted ruins of Poggibonsi, around the walls and towers of Staggia,
through the mediaeval streets of Siena, and off into the desolate world of barren
hills and wide, dry valleys opening out toward the familiar cone of Mount
Amiata. This mournful landscape, the magical background of Giovanni di
Paolo’s pictures, seemed more wild and melancholy than ever in the moonlight.

The curves of the Arbia were marked only by their misty poplars and wil-
lows. At Buonconvento the Bailey bridge substitute for the destroyed mediaeval
bridge was for northbound trafBc only, so we took the detour which had been
bulldozed through the fields. The jeep churned up enormous clouds of dry dust
which boiled around and above us, choking white and luminous in the moon-
light. Blinded by dust we missed the turning beyond Buonconvento, and lost
our way on country roads. Only after half an hour did we come to a straight-
away which gave promise of leading to a bridge across the Arbia. Too tired
to think clearly, the driver again took a wrong turn and we charged up an
embankment leading to a blown bridge. The brakes were defective, but miracu-
lously we stopped on the jagged edge of the smashed abutment. The front
wheels were exactly even with the edge, and we looked down thirty-five feet
to the mass of rubble reposing on the dried river bed, and up to the distant

{ 24 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

black hill on which the towers of San Quirico were silhouetted against the
moon.

We proceeded without further mishap as far as Montepulciano, our last ob-
stacle before emerging into the plain of Lake Trasimeno. But at the top of
Montepulciano hill, at two-thirty in the morning, our defective brakes gave
out entirely and we had to spend the rest of the chilly night curled up in the
jeep until I could hitch-hike to Castiglione for help.

I had small difficulty in persuading the Group Captain and Major Newton
to agree to my plan, and thus temporarily exchanged my job as regional mfaa
officer for a post far in advance of army amg. Since my jeep and driver were
still immobilized in Montepulciano, I was given Captain Ellis’s jeep, a fine
vehicle rejoicing in the name of “Georgette.” The driver, Pfc. Howard, was a
stocky taciturn ex-infantryman from the West Virginia hills, excellent both
as driver and mechanic. As soon as I had cleaned off the grime of forty-eight
hours of mined and shell-torn roads we started out again, arriving at San
Donato in Poggio in the early evening. The next morning General Leese’s aide
informed me that the General had approved my request for guards, which were
to be supplied at once. As a matter of fact, this policy was continued later when
the area came under Fifth Army, and not until November were the last guards
removed from the deposits in the area around Montegufoni. The aide also
informed us that we had been invited to lunch at General Leese’s mess the
following day to meet General Alexander, then Commander-in-Chief, Allied
Armies in Italy, and accompany him through the collection at Montegufoni.

That same afternoon Howard and I moved into the castle of Montegufoni.
The picmresque Mahratta battalion had already left for the assault on Flor-
ence, to be replaced by a small guard unit under the command of a young
British lieutenant. I chose a large room with a gigantic four-poster Seicento
bed and a view out over the valley to the towers and cypresses of Poppiano.
Directly below this room was the salone containing the largest of the pictures.
Water had ceased to flow in the absence of electricity to work the pump. Light
was furnished by whatever candles we could steal. Meals were sketchy at first,
until through the good offices of the custodian we discovered an old peasant
woman to cook for us. It was more than a month before I was to move my
belongings from this room again — a month of wild trips on dusty, traffic-
packed roads, a month of shellfire and ruin, a month of work and worry
and grief as one shattered monument after another, one rifled deposit after
another, demanded help that was almost impossible to give; a month of un-
speakable fatigue and sleepless nights, looking from my window down the
hill into the crowding cypresses of the Baroque gardens, while the countryside
trembled from the guns all night long.

{ 25 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

Though I did not know it, the first night we spent in Montegufoni was the
night in which the Germans blew up the bridges of Florence and eviscerated
the mediaeval city. No exact reports were forthcoming in the morning at the
press camp, but it was known that New Zealand units had already entered
the portion of the city lying on the south bank of the Arno, that the city was
divided between the opposing armies by the destruction of the bridges, and
that there was fierce machine-gun fire from bank to bank. So ended our
hopes that Florence would be spared! The wonderful city, the birthplace and
nucleus of the Renaissance, lay a victim of the conflict we had felt sure would
pass it by. Yet not until my own entrance into Florence on August 13 did I
begin to realize the full extent of the tragedy.

After lunch the next day. General Alexander, his chief-of -staff. Lieutenant
General Harding, and several of his aides, started off with Vaughan Thomas
and me to Montegufoni, in spite of warnings against the dangers of the area.
Three open jeeps had been prepared for the party, undecorated save for a tiny
Union Jack on the nose of the lead vehicle, driven by Alexander himself, four
rows of ribbons glittering on his grey bush jacket. We arrived covered with
dust and Professor Fasola was there to receive us. The General greeted the
refugees and peasants who had gathered about the castle and shook hands
warmly with Fasola, congratulating him on his devotion to duty. Then for
two hours we walked about the collection. The General wanted to see each
room and wished an explanation of every picture. He had a considerable knowl-
edge of art, and although his favorite period was French Impressionism he was
much interested in the Renaissance and enjoyed particularly the Primavera.
Before leaving, he expressed his willingness to do everything possible to aid our
work. I never had the honor of seeing General Alexander again, but I more
than once had cause to thank him for his interest in the mfaa officers and their
work.

The following day Howard and I went on one of our most harrowing trips,
to the deposit of 284 pieces of sculpture from the Uffizi Gallery, housed in an
eleventh century castle, called Torre del Castellano, opposite Incisa in a curve
of the Arno above Figline, which by this time the Eighth Army advance had
left in the rear. Torre del Castellano contained much of the Greek, Hellenistic,
and Roman sculpture from the Medici collections, as well as numerous portrait
busts of the Medici family. Perhaps the most important objects there were the
series of the Children of Niobe. We arrived at Figline across the same hill road
that had not yet been taken when I first came up to Montegufoni, and found
that the bridge across the Arno at Incisa, destroyed by the Germans, had not
yet been replaced. We therefore forded the stream at a shallow spot and pro-

( 26 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

ceeded toward the castle on the hill above us on roads that were just being de-
mined as we moved slowly up, along with the advancing British tanks and
artillery.

On arrival at the foot of the hill on which the castle stood we found that its
immense mass, two towers united by a central building block, was being used
as defilade for the British guns firing over it, while German artillery was trained
on a road junction about a hundred yards farther to the left. Every few minutes
columns of dust and smoke rose to indicate a hit, but no individual shots or
explosions could be distinguished in the unbelievable din, echoed and magnified
by the steep walls of the gorge through which the Arno passes at Incisa. The
whole landscape had been splattered by bombs intended for the Incisa cement
factory, and the famous railway tunnel, which once had housed the Florentine
baptistery doors, had been hit again and again. The jeep could go no farther,
so I had Howard place it in an already de-mined spot on the shoulder of the
road against the hill, out of direct danger from shellfire, and promised to come
back and get us both out of there as soon as possible. Crouching and crawling
to the top of the hill, I made a dash along the exposed skyline and reached the
castle.

The noise of the battle had reached such a pitch that only with the greatest
difficulty could the owner. Signor Pegna, give me any information. The Ger-
mans had left the castle only the preceding day, leaving behind the usual sort
of damage. The deposit was wailed up and probably intact, and there had
been no attempt to disturb it. But the rooms which contained the sculpture
were unfortunately on the north side of the castle, exposed to the artillery fire
all around us. Actually the deposit was never much damaged, but it was many
weeks before I could fulfill my promise to send Italian officials to take care of
it.

Meanwhile the situation in Florence was so desperate that Group Captain
Benson would permit only the most essential amg officers in the city. German
shells were falling all over the liberated Oltrarno district, and civilians and
Allied troops were being killed constantly. There was no water, very little
food, and thousands of refugees, so the problem of feeding and bringing medi-
cal supplies to the population under these appalling conditions took precedence
over everything else. Public safety, welfare, and medical officers were allowed
in the town, but the old plan of a concerted mfaa team, to which so much had
been sacrificed, had gone glimmering. The Group Captain, aware of the new
magnitude of the work in the deposits, made arrangements to have other of-
ficers and Italian authorities come up from Rome to Montegufoni. Major
DeWald came for a week. Capt. Sheldon Pennoyer, an American painter who

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PICTURES OF FLORENCE

was responsible for the photographic work of the Subcommission, and Capt.
Roderick Enthoven, a British architect, were to stay in the castle, working
with Dr. Giorgio Castelfranco, former director of the Pitti Gallery, exiled by
Fascism, and Dr. Emilio Lavagnino, one of the most prominent Italian art
historians, both from the Ministry of Public Instruction. Later Col. Henry
Newton from shaef arrived for a couple of days with his assistant. Lieutenant
Lippmann. Eventually Captain Ellis came to stay, to take charge of all the
archives in the region.

According to the new plan I was to continue making the first visits to all
the deposits, taking whatever action was necessary, with the authority of Eighth
Army. Then the careful checking of the contents, object by object, would be
done by teams composed of one Allied and one Italian ofl&cial. The Italians
had brought with them from Rome the inventories of the supposed contents
of each deposit, inventories which I had sought in vain in the early days of
the liberation of the capital. In addition I had taken a flying trip to Siena to
persuade Colonel Kirkwood of the urgent need for more transportation, so
I returned with “Lucky” and Franco, thenceforward permanent members of
my staff, and was able to restore to Captain Ellis his borrowed “Georgette.”

With the greatly increased going and coming at Montegufoni, sometimes
as many as fourteen people at once, the dinners became huge family parties.
Officers, enlisted men, Italian officials, and Italian drivers sat down together.
For most of us lunch was a can of c-rations in a ditch, but dinner, once we had
bathed in the huge earthenware pot that served as a tub, was a pleasant affair.
Our peasant woman proved an excellent cook, and her hearty, Tuscan meals
were washed down with many a glass of good Chianti. Although the Italians
generally excused themselves early, many of us remained to talk, to walk about
the gardens, or to climb the great tower and look across the hills to the con-
tinuous blaze of artillery fire that indicated the presence of the Arno, along
which the war was now stabilized. In spite of the Allied guns all around us and
the German shells falling intermittently in the vicinity, I usually fell asleep at
once from sheer exhaustion. By two or three, however, I was generally wide
awake, planning the trip for the ne.xt day, obsessed with worry over the deposits
we had not yet reached and over the fate of Florence.

On August 7 Franco and I started off for one of the most important deposits
of all, the villa of La Torre a Cona which, according to the information re-
ceived at the press camp, should already have been liberated. The villa, property
of Count Rossi (of Martini and Rossi), was a large, seventeenth century build-
ing surrounded by vineyards. The inventory was spectacular, listing the com-
plete series of statues by Michelangelo from the Medici tombs in San Lorenzo,
the colossal statues of Prophets by Donatello and others from the campanile

/ 25 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

of the Duomo of Florence, the two cantorie by Donatello and by Luca della
Robbia from the Opera del Duomo, all the Michelangelo material from the
Casa Buonarroti, including the Madonna della Scala, the Battle of Lapiths and
Centaurs, the model for the facade of San Lorenzo and the rich series of draw-
ings and autograph manuscripts. Then the Verrochio putto from the fountain
in the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio, the Della Robbia reliefs from the penden-
tives of the Pazzi Chapel in Santa Croce, a mass of sculpture from the Bargello,
three of the Paolo Uccello frescoes from the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria
Novella (three more had been abandoned by the Germans at Montagnana),
and some sixty-three paintings from the Uffizi, including the Portinari altar-
piece by Hugo van der Goes, the Coronation of the Virgin by Lorenzo Monaco,
and the Rubens pictures for the Triumph of Henry IV.

Our way from San Donato In Poggio to San Donato in Collina, near which
was the villa of La Torre a Cona, lay through country as wild and deserted as
the region I had traversed on my way to Montegufoni, and the increasing din
as the road turned northward gave me uneasy memories of the battle around
Torre del Castellano. But I decided to continue as long as I found recent wheel
tracks, ask information from military units, and watch out for signs of dis-
turbance in the surface of the road, for the worst danger was from mines. In
this manner we eventually arrived at La Torre a Cona, a massive building
liberated only the preceding day, and already occupied by a mechanized bat-
talion of the Irish Light Horse. The villa was on the very edge of Allied-held
territory, and German shells were being poured constantly into the road ahead.
Major Welch, the battalion commander, readily understood the importance
of the deposit, promised to undertake full guard responsibility during his stay
in the place, and to post the section containing the works of art Out of Bounds.
The building was still undamaged, although the Germans had made carnage
out of the library and all the business papers of the winery. The director of
the establishment. Signor Calvelli, led me about the upper floor to where the
Assumption by Perugino stood, quite undamaged, although some huge and
mediocre nineteenth century Italian paintings lying in rolls on the floor had
been slit open by a German bayonet.

The walled-up refuge which contained the major part of the paintings had
been broken into, and in the interior many of the boxes had been shifted about.
Luckily, however, none of the boxes had been broken and the opening made
by the Germans was too small to have permitted the passage of any of these
crates. Then Calvelli showed us into the principal storage room, a huge hall
in the substructions of the building, which opened onto a terrace at a low'er
level than the front entrance. For that reason and over Calvelli's protests the
Germans had insisted on using this room as a garage.

{ 29 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

In the sudden sunlight which streamed through the outer doors as Calvelli
flung them open the colossal statues by Donatello and Michelangelo were
revealed, still in their protecting crates. Unable to suppress an exclamation of
shock and wonder, I climbed over the crates, identifying with great emotion
one after another until I found myself gazing through the bars of a crate into
the agonized face of Michelangelo’s Dawn, every tragic lineament disclosed
by the light from the door.

The sculpture was all in order. No attempt had been made to move or disturb
anything. But as I looked toward the door, I saw, leaning one against the other
like so many burlap screens, the Expulsion from Paradise, the Flood, and the
Sacrifice and Drunkenness of Noah from the Chiostro Verde, detached from
their walls and fixed to canvas. I learned later that the job had been done by
authority of the Central Institute of Restoration in Rome, and against the ad-
vice of the Florentine Superintendency. The work had been badly bungled, and
the Germans had moved the already damaged frescoes without regard for their
importance. The abandoned implements of the military garage were piled
against them, tearing holes in the sadly battered masterpieces. I at once asked
Calvelli for workmen, and together we moved the beams, the boards, and the
crowbars, and then shifted the monstrously heavy frescoes to positions where
nothing could touch or lean against them.

At Montegufoni that night it was decided that the laborious job of checking
should be undertaken by Captain Enthoven and Dr. Lavagnino. This team
would stay in Torre a Cona five days, verifying the inventory and examining
the placing and condition of every object. If possible they were to have local
masons wall up the whole deposit, so that no military units could use that por-
tion of the building. Furthermore, if they could in any way obtain transporta-
tion, they were to go over to Torre del Castellano and make another inspection
there, the type of thorough check which could not be made on the day of my
first visit. On the twelfth we were to bring them back to Torre a Cona.

The morning of August 8, therefore, we set out. Our first stop was the village
of Grassina on the outskirts of Florence, in order to notify the cao there of the
presence of this deposit. The interdict that forbade us to enter the liberated
portion of Florence became more poignant when for a second we caught sight
of the hills beyond the city, and the immense brown form of Brunelleschi’s
dome with its marble lantern shining in the sun. Grassina was an uncomfort-
able spot at the moment, under intermittent shellfire. There, ho\ve\er, I had
the good fortune to run into Capt. Lawrence L. Miller, who told mie that there
was a large collection of pictures in the unused clubhouse of a golf course at
Campo deir Ugolino, a few miles south of Grassina. I was reluctant to stop
but could not ignore the chance that there might be something of importance.

{ ^0 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

The clubhouse proved to be quite modern, with windows in horizontal strips
— all boarded up. We soon located the custodian and discovered that inside
were a considerable section of the Museo Civico of Pisa and a number of altar-
pieces from Pisan churches. We crawled through the hole the Germans had
made in the walled-up portion of the clubhouse and with the help of a candle
and a tiny flashlight explored the hot, airless rooms, jammed with the Sienese
and Pisan Trecento pictures in which the Museo Civico is particularly rich, our
faint lights striking reflections from the gold backgrounds and glittering pin-
nacles. Upstahs against the wall stood the whole row of magnificent Crucifixes
which are the principal works of Pisan Dugento painting, and indeed among
the most beautiful monuments of thirteenth century painting in Tuscany. On
both floors every object was neatly stacked so that no damage could be caused
by the pressure of one panel against another; there seemed to be very little
dust, and the order had probably not been disturbed. According to the cus-
todian, the Germans, not satisfied with the sign that placed the building under
the protection of the Vatican, had insisted on searching for hidden arms but
had not moved any of the pictures.

We were all mystified at the presence of these pictures here, the m.ore so as
Lavagnino assured me that no information as to their removal from the region
of Pisa had ever been received at the Ministry in Rome. The caretaker then
told us that the superintendent of monuments and galleries for Pisa, Engineer
Piero Sanpaolesi, had brought them here comparatively recently, and indeed
was still living in an apartment in the Palazzo Pitti. The necessity of seeing San-
paolesi made a fine pretext for requesting permission to enter Florence, so after
proper delivery of Enthoven and Lavagnino at La Torre a Cona, Franco and
I set out for Eighth Army. The headquarters had just been moved to a more
convenient spot between Poggibonsi and Staggia, in a wood off the Via Cassia.

I found Major Newton still sitting in his tent w'aiting for Florence to be liber-
ated. The Group Captain granted no permission to go to Florence, but at least
he offered to send for Sanpaolesi at once and deliver him to Montegufoni.

All of us at Montegufoni took a rather dim view of a superintendent abandon-
ing his post at a time of danger, and it was therefore with considerable interest
that I found on returning to the villa that evening that Sanpaolesi had arrived
on schedule, in the custody of two carabinieri. He had, as a matter of fact been
sent for by four carabinieri, apparently in the belief that he was a dangerous
character. There is no necessity to dwell on the conversation that followed.
Captain Keller (since Pisa was in Fifth Army area) and I decided to assume
the responsibility for retaining Sanpaolesi as superintendent, despite the ques-
tionable aspects of his presence in Florence rather than in Pisa, and despite his
political past. Our decision was prompted by strict necessity, for there was no

{ 31 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

one else available who both could and would take the post. Yet it would be
unfair to Sanpaolesi not to state that he had been an excellent superintendent
up until his flight from Pisa, had saved all the works of art from the Pisan
churches by prompt evacuation, and that after his return to his post labored
indefatigably to bring order out of ruin under the most difficult circumstances.

I learned from Sanpaolesi that Pisa had suffered much worse damage than
the air photographs I had seen in April had led me to believe. Yet terrible
as had been the bombardment of the railway yards south of Pisa, spreading
destruction over much of the southern half of the city, some of the worst dam-
age was caused by the late July bombardments of the bridges and by the forty
days of fighting inside the city. Neither of this nor of the fate of the Campo
Santo, a tragedy already a fortnight old, did Sanpaolesi or I have the least
suspicion.

Many of the most precious objects from the Museo Civico, together with the
offices of the Superintendency and most of the other governmental offices in
Pisa, had been moved to the Certosa of Calci at the foot of Monte San Giuhano.
The inspector of the Pisa Superintendency, Eugenio Luporini, remained at
Calci with the pictures. As for Campo dell’ Ugolino, Sanpaolesi did not have
his inventories with him but assured me that the numbering system would
immediately disclose any gaps. The following day Captain Pennoyer took
Sanpaolesi over to Campo dell’ Ugolino, and their long and careful examina-
tion showed that nothing had been touched. After a few days we delivered
Sanpaolesi to Volterra, to work there under the supervision of Captain Keller.

The return of Enthoven and Lavagnino from La Torre a Cona made clear
that no exact inventory check of that deposit was feasible. The Superintendency
had already started the evacuation of the villa some months before, bringing
back to Florence a number of statutes, including some of the Medici tomb
figures by Michelangelo. A complete check of the remainder had been made,
however, and it was evident that nothing was in danger. Enthoven and Lava-
gnino had supervised the construction of walls blocking off entirely every room
containing works of art, and the deposit seemed secure enough to obviate the
necessity of military guards. During this same period Major DeWald, Professor
Fasola, and Dr. Castelfranco were making an exact check of the contents of
Montegufoni, Poppiano, and Montagnana, rectifying the disorder caused by
the Germans and by the battle, under very' difficult circumstances indeed. With
the exception of the 297 paintings missing from the Villa Bossi-Pucci at Mon-
tagnana, it could be announced that the contents of the deposits corresponded
to the inventories.

I was still worried by the deposit at Castel Oliveto, which contained, in addi-
tion to a group of pictures from the Horne Foundation in Florence and from

{ S2 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

the galleries of Florence and Empoli, numerous altarpieces taken from the
Florentine churches for safekeeping. Altogether there were 189 paintings, 9
pieces of sculpture, and 57 boxes of works of minor art, such as ecclesiastical
vessels and illuminated manuscripts. The place had already been visited since
its liberation, but it was so far away, over in the Val d’Elsa near Castel Fiorentio,
that it had been hard to get to it and do any work. On the day that Captain
Pennoyer, Dr. Castelfranco, and I started out for Oliveto we had our first
taste of the drenching rains that were to make the autumn offensive impossible
and our own work exceedingly difficult. The road up to the hill on which the
castle stood was so slippery that it was almost impassable. After much slither-
ing about in the bottomless mud, “Lucky” accomplished the ascent and we
entered the castle.

The story there narrated to us by Cavaliere Conti, the overseer of the castle
and its vineyards, can best be told as written in Superintendent Poggi’s report:

“During the night of Sunday, July 16, 1944, I was notified by Dr. Popp
of the German consulate that a convoy of three trucks had left during that
same night from a non-specified place in the Valdelsa to bring works of
art to the German headquarters in Piazza San Marco in Florence, where it was
to arrive at eight in the morning. He asked me to be present at the arrival.
In fact at eight the trucks arrived, accompanied by the paratrooper, Colonel
von Hofmann, Captain Tweer, and paratroopers and gendarmes of the Feld-
gendarmerie. With them was Cav. Augusto Conti, the custodian of our deposit
of Oliveto.

“It was explained to us that since the castle of Oliveto was under the fire
of the Allied artillery, the military command of the sector had decided upon
the immediate transport to Florence of the works of art. This operation had
been executed by the Dienststelle l. commanded by Colonel von Hof-
mann. The works were unloaded in the Museo San Marco; there were 84 paint-
ings, 23 crates, and 5 pieces of frames. The rest was left at Oliveto. Through
good luck, although the loading took place at night and with the labor of
soldiers, the objects arrived in good condition with slight and easily reparable
damage.

“Conti, who accompanied the convoy, told me, however, that it was not
correct that the castle of Oliveto was already under artiller}' fire and that, on
the contrary, the zone to which it belongs and which does not have major com-
munication arteries was still fairly quiet. He added further that, besides the
objects which had arrived in Florence, two panel paintings by Lucas Cranach,
the Adam and the Eve from the Gallery of the Uffizi, had also been taken by
order of Colonel von Hofmann, and loaded into an ambulance but had never
arrived in Florence. I looked immediately for the Colonel, but he was no longer

{ id }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

on the spot; Captain Tweer told me he knew nothing of the affair because
he had arrived at Oliveto after the ambulance had already left [this later proved
to be true], Monday, July 17, I informed Colonel Langsdorff of the fact, and
during the night of the seventeenth he went to Oliveto, and upon his return
let me know that there was no need to worry about the other things remaining
at Oliveto as the locality was considered quite safe ; as to the two Cranachs he
was already tracing them and would remain personally responsible for their
restitution. Following this communication I wrote him a letter with the urgent
request that he continue in his search in order to insure that the two precious
paintings be brought back to Florence as soon as possible. The letter could not
be consigned to Langsdorff, as he left Florence on the nineteenth. However, I
was able to notify the director general. Carlo Anti, of the fact immediately in
a letter of July 20. . . .

“A few days later Casoni, a lawyer of Florence, informed me that Colonel
von Hofmann on Sunday, July 16, had spoken in a friend’s house of the two
pictures, and had given to understand that they had been taken at the wish of
Field Marshal Goering. . . . On July 28 at eleven o’clock I had an unexpected
visit from Colonel Langsdorff. . . . To my question he replied that he had found
the two paintings by Cranach, and that they were in a safe place, but he was
unable to give me any more details. . . . This was my last conversation with
him.”

It was a long time before any of us knew that on July 17, when Langsdorff
was protesting to Poggi that he knew nothing about them, the pictures were
at the Hotel Excelsior in Florence — in Langsdorff s room\ Had Poggi arrived
with his letter a few minutes earlier on the nineteenth he might have been in
time to see them leave.

Langsdorff and soldiers of the 71st Infantry Regiment on the night of the
seventeenth began to move the remaining pictures down into the wine cellar
to protect them against the nonexistent shells, leaving only the monumental
frames, too heavy and bulky to carry down the narrow stairs, still in the main
halls of the villa. When we reached the wine cellar, it was a shocking sight.
The pictures had been piled rudely against wine casks in a damp and moldy
spot, and Pennoyer and I at once obtained from Conti the men to bring the
pictures up again into the upper rooms. It was a long and delicate job. Captain
Pennoyer stood downstairs and I at the top as the pictures came up, while
Dr. Castelfranco checked them off on the inventory and stowed them away
in the principal rooms of the villa.

As two sweating Tuscan peasants labored up the stairs, the light fell upon
Filippo Lippi's wonderful Annunciation from San Lorenzo, innocent of anv
frame or protection, hoisted on their shoulders like a cowshed door beino- car-

{ S4 }

PICTURES OF FLORENCE

ried from the carpenter’s shop. The last time I had seen it was in that most
luminous of all Renaissance interiors, installed on its altar and protected by
the gilded columns and cornice of its Quattrocento frame. Among other treas-
ures in the cellar was the Crucifix by Cimabue leaning against a wine cask.
The damage from dampness would have been irreparable had these things
been left where they were, so we worked all day long putting them into safe
places, consolidating the entire deposit into two large rooms which could
easily be locked up.

{ 35 }

CHAPTER IV

THE LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

O N August II the German forces defending the north bank of the Arno
I in the center of Florence withdrew to the periphery of the city, leav-
ing the major part of the town in the hands of the Partisans but subject
to sporadic shellfire. Only a few Allied officers and their enlisted assistants
were permitted into the center of the city for the all-important purpose of
bringing some quantities, however small, of food, water, and medicine to the
stricken population. For nine days the inhabitants had been shut up in their
houses, cut off from all public services by the blowing up of the water mains,
the gas and the light, always the last graceful gesture of the Germans before
leaving a city. By August 12 the suspense of waiting for an order to go to
Florence had become unbearable, and I drove down to Eighth Army head-
quarters to try to cut the waiting short, only to find that on the preceding day
Captain Ellis had already been to Florence. He had not crossed the river, how-
ever, nor had the still unsettled conditions on the south bank permitted him
to do much exploring. He was able to report only that the principal monuments
of the south bank, such as the Pitti Palace and the churches of Santo Spirito
and the Carmine, were apparently intact, although the Masaccio frescoes in
the latter were walled up and could not be seen. Ponte Santa Trinita, the finest
bridge of the Renaissance and perhaps the most beautiful bridge in Italy, was
definitely and completely gone (Figs, i, 2). The design for this masterpiece
of Bartolommeo Ammanati has been revealed by a recently discovered letter
to have been corrected and reworked by Michelangelo himself.

But for me the necessity of getting in touch with the Superintendency to
find out about the rest of the deposits was by this time absolute. I succeeded in
obtaining from the Group Captain permission to visit the south bank of the
Arno, for the sole purpose of going to the Palazzo Pitti to interview the chief
personnel of the Superintendency. I was on no account to cross the river, as
the military situation was still highly unsettled and the center of the city, held
only by small bands of Partisans and those amg officers essential for health and
police purposes, might be retaken by the Germans at any moment.

I therefore started out for Florence the next morning in a state of feverish
excitement, and the recollection of the sights of that day makes it difficult to
write even now, two years later. I presented my pass to the Military Police at
San Casciano, not even noticing that the graceful town, one of the loveliest
of the villages surrounding Florence, had been gutted by Allied air bombard-
ments. We drove down the hill from San Casciano to the Greve valley wfith

{ 36 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

a sense of overwhelming tragedy. The destruction of Florence seemed the end
of all civilization. How long would this situation last.i* Would Florence become
another Cassino ? Already that comparison was on the thoughtless lips of young
staff oflScers unaware of its significance. How could they know if they had
never seen Florence glitter in the valley through the cypresses of Bellosguardo;
or looked from San Miniato at sunset to see the Arno under its bridges turn to
copper, the cathedral standing ankle deep in roof tops, flanked in majesty by
Giotto’s campanile and defended by the towers of the Bargello and Palazzo
Vecchio; or if they had never walked in solemn amazement through the in-
comparable spatial harmonies of Santa Maria Novella and Santo Spirito c

We passed below the Certosa di Galuzzo, still undamaged on its hilltop,
which I had last seen as a young student years before. At the road fork below
Poggio Imperiale the direct road into Porta Romana, the great southern gate
of the city, was closed by a simple sign with the words “Under Enemy Observa-
tion.” We turned right, up the slope of Poggio Imperiale and then down the
tree-masked road to Porta Romana. Through the trees I caught a quick glimpse
of that luminous spectacle of the city which no one who has ever seen it from
the hills can possibly forget. The valley around reverberated with shellfire.

The people on the streets seemed to be emerging from some dreadful illness.
They were drawn, pale, miserably thin from the long siege. I drove up to Villa
Torreggiani, in whose gardens the temporary amg headquarters had been set
up for several days, penetrating with difficulty the hurly-burly of trucks, jeeps,
officers, soldiers, and Italian civilians that filled the gardens. I was suddenly
recognized by the provincial commissioner for amg in Florence, the young
British lieutenant colonel, Ralph Rohe. He at once ordered me to cross the
river into the northern part of the city. My previous orders could thus be dis-
regarded. But first I was to write out passes for all the Superintendency per-
sonnel to cross the Arno. This was my first experience with the famous travel
passes, the writing of which was to take up so much of my time in the ensuing
months. It struck me as ludicrous that after fighting for nine days to get a
pass to come to Florence myself, my first duty on arrival should be the writing
of passes for twelve other people.

In the Torreggiani gardens I met for the first time one who was to become a
faithful collaborator during the next year of hard work, Prof. Filippo Rossi,
director of the galleries of Florence. After the complicated passes were com-
pleted and Franco and I had lunched on c-rations under a pine tree, we started
through the crowded streets of Oltrarno for the Pitti Palace. From the shade
of Via Serragli with its overhanging eaves we drove through crowds of liber-
ated Florentines into the blazing sun of Piazza Pitti and up the slope to the
mountainous fagade of the palace. How many tourists from every country had

{ 37 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

once entered that gate and gazed up through the courtyard of Ammanati at
the fountain playing against the sky, and to the cypresses and oleanders of the
Boboli gardens! Now the vast court was a crawling mass of unfortunate hu-
manity. The palace of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany looked like the most
crowded slum in Naples. Mothers, babies, men, boys, with bundles of clothing
and mattresses and a few miserable belongings, lay under the huge arches,
swarmed through the courtyard and up the stairs, screamed from the palace
windows. Sheets and clothing hung in quantities from every balcony. Here
and there tables and even little charcoal stoves were set up for the preparation
of pathetic meals. There was only one source of water in the palace, and there
were six thousand refugees who had come to find shelter in these massive walls
after the Germans had evacuated the whole section of the city along the river-
banks. Even the royal apartments had been put to use to accommodate this tide
of human misery, and the romantic walks of the Boboli Gardens were used
as a public toilet. It was months before the gardeners got them clean again.

In a moment my jeep was surrounded by curious, joyful people. My future
colleagues were about me, overflowing with questions. “We have been waiting
for you so long!” cried Poggi’s son, “Why didn’t you come sooner.?” I seemed
to be borne bodily from the jeep by the wave of spontaneous affection and good
will. I met dozens of people in quick succession, but particularly Prof. Ugo
Procacci, one of the two directors of the Superintendency, responsible for the
preservation of all works of art outside Florence in the three provinces, as well
as for the famous Gabinetto del Restauro in the Uffizi, where, with slender
material means, many a miracle is worked and many a masterpiece saved for
posterity. In later months the self-sacrifice and devotion of Procacci and his
all-consuming love of art were to increase my respect for him beyond descrip-
tion. And then appeared the superintendent himself, grave and self-contained,
like a figure from a Masaccio fresco, whose true nobility was disclosed by the
events of this terrible period.

I was soon extricated from the crowd and led to a conference table which
had been prepared in one of the frescoed halls of the palace. At this meeting
I outlined the administrative structure of mfaa. explained who we all were and
in what ways we would be able to help the Superintendency, and also the
limitations of the work possible under amg. I then obtained from the Super-
intendency the full list of the still-occupied deposits and ascertained their loca-
tion. Thus began a year of collaboration in which Allied officers and Italian
officials faced together the disasters of a war which in a few months ruined so
large a proportion of the monuments of Tuscan art.

But I had not yet seen the devastated area and the blown bridges. Procacci
and I therefore departed on foot toward the scene, and on the way he related

( S8 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

the events of the terrible night of August third. I asked him to record in writing
this most tragic period in the history of Florence, and with Procacci’s permis-
sion I here quote his remarkable story in full:

“The morning of July 29, 1944, the Commune of Florence was notified that
the German Command needed immediately a detailed map of the area of the
city adjacent to the bridges. Engineer Giuntoli, head of the technical office of
the Commune, ran to warn Superintendent Poggi, who went at once to His
Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, along with other Florentine
authorities. In view of the increased gravity of the situation Superintendent
Poggi was instructed to prepare a memorandum citing the promises to respect
Florence as an open city. This was to be taken the following morning to the
German commandant, Colonel Fuchs.

“In the meantime a proclamation was posted throughout the city ordering
the inhabitants of the sections along the Arno to evacuate their houses before
twelve noon on the following day. This provision was justified by saying that
‘while the German Command has recognized and treated Florence as an open
city, the enemy up to now has not declared whether it recognizes Florence as
an open city or not.’ The ordinance therefore was made ‘to spare losses to the
population in case of eventual attacks or attempts against the bridges across
the Arno’; and to reassure the public even further, it concluded by saying that
the removal of personal possessions, especially furniture, was not necessary.

“The following day, Sunday, July 30, the Florentine authorities met again
with the Cardinal, and after the memorandum was ready and unanimously
approved by those present the group went to the German headquarters and
the memorandum was presented and read to Colonel Fuchs. Herein he was
reminded of ‘the negotiations of the German ambassador in Italy, of Marshal
Kesselring and of the German consul in Florence, for the city to be considered
an open city and spared as much as possible of the damages of war, and the
orders given in this respect personally by the Fiihrer.’ He was further reminded
that ‘the chief of staff of the supreme headquarters of the W ehrmacht declared,
at the Fiihrer’s headquarters on May 12, 1944, in the name of the Fiihrer, that
every effort would be made not to furnish the enemy with any military motive
for attacking Florence, the “jewel of Europe,” ’ and it was noted that ‘in conse-
quence of such assurance and measures the Italian Government has given orders
to bring back into the city the works of art transported elsewhere to save them
from the danger of air raids and has interrupted the work begun for the protec-
tion of the Florentine monuments ... in full accord with the German military
authorities who for this purpose had lent their assistance.’ It was also noted that
‘in recent publications in the Florentine newspapers controlled bv the Germans,
and specifically in the Nazione of July 29, the gratitude of the Florentines was

{ 39 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

expressed to “those who have promised and obtained for Florence the treatment
of an open city,” ’ and it was recognized that the Anglo-American Allies had
respected the monumental parts of the city of Florence, and that in fact no
damage had been caused to its more ancient quarters or more important build-
ings.

“In conclusion, it was stated that the authorities, ‘alarmed now and surprised
by the announcement of serious measures in evident contrast with what had
up to then been declared and brought to the knowledge of the citizens; and
unable to take effective provisions due to the restricted time and the difficulty
of the situation, but desirous of accomplishing as much as possible for the salva-
tion of the city — ask the German headquarters whether they still intend, as re-
peatedly declared, to consider and treat Florence as an open city. Further, the
authorities requested authorization and means to communicate directly with
the Anglo-American military headquarters to inform them of the situation in
order that the responsibility for acts which could bring grave harm to a city
of such importance, not only for the Florentines but for the Italians and for
the whole civilized world, should remain clearly determined before the judg-
ment of history.’

“Colonel Fuchs, although the movements of his face betrayed an inner ir-
ritation at the last part of this memorandum, offered no objections to the con-
tents of the note which had been read to him; he said only that he did not
have the authority to concede a safe-conduct for the Cardinal to cross over to
the Allies as was requested, and that for this he would have to ask Marshal
Kesselring. But on the other hand, he assured all present that the measures
adopted were only precautionary. Then he took one of the little proclamations
dropped by Allied airplanes the day before over Florence, with the instructions
of General Alexander's headquarters to the Florentines, and said that the Allies,
however, did not count Florence as an open city. 'With these words the meeting
was dissolved.

“Reassurances similar to those of Colonel Fuchs were explicitly repeated in
the last newspaper issued in Florence, the Nazione of that same day, July 30,
in an article commenting on the ordinance for the evacuation of the area of
the bridges, an article which could not but be ofiEcial in a newspaper controlled
by the German authorities. This statement read: ‘The German headquarters
wishes to confirm its responsibility for the initiative in having declared Florence
an open city according to international standards, but although the German
side has entirely fulfilled the agreements of the international conventions, a
confirmation on the part of the Anglo-Saxons is still lacking. In other words
the enemy has not expressly declared that he intends on his part to respect
Florence as an open city. Therefore it is not surprising if the German head-

; 40 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

quarters suspect a possible enemy action against the six Florentine bridges,
which constitute so many objectives within the reach of Anglo-Saxon offensive
means. But it is purely a suspicion, and thus a form of precaution which does
not in the least change the determination of the German headquarters to abide
by the standards of the international conventions up to now scrupulously re-
spected. . . . Evacuation of the strip of habitations bordering on the Arno means
only the prevention of possible injury to the population in case the enemy at-
tempts to damage the bridges across the river.’

“It would have seemed, therefore, following so many and such explicit
declarations, official and semiofficial, that there was nothing to fear regarding
the intentions of the German authorities, but these illusions were not to last
for long.

“In the early afternoon someone from an unidentified German unit tele-
phoned to the superintendent asking if it would be possible to remove during
the day the four statues from Ponte Santa Trinita. The superintendent informed
him that this was absolutely impossible, since the statues were so large that
a scaffolding would be required, and also because it was impossible to find
workmen at the moment, given the circumstances as well as the fact that it
was a holiday. No matter how quickly one tried to work, at least several days
would be necessary; but the German replied that that was not possible.

“On the following day [Monday, July 31] no one was permitted to cross
the bridges or to move in the area which had been evacuated, so that the city
was divided into two parts. Thus the tragic days began for the Florentines.
We understood now what a frightful destiny hung over our bridges but we
did not yet suppose that the enemy fury would go so far as to destroy entire
streets, and among the most beautiful, of the mediaeval city. . . .

“I had been for some time lodged with my family in a few rooms of Palazzo
Pitti, since I had had to abandon my house, which was too close to the Campo
di Marte railroad station.^ When on Sunday I crossed Ponte Santa Trinita for
the last time and in dark sadness climbed Piazza Pitti to enter the great portal,
an atrocious spectacle roused me from that nightmarish sense of being lost that
had seized us all, a feeling that we were tiny and impotent against the adverse
development of events. On all sides in the Ammanati courtyard was a chaotic
mass of people, looking for a place to put their mattresses and what few things
they had been able to bring from their abandoned houses. It was the most
humble populace of the Oltrarno section who sought refuge in the great palace,
finding that its massive walls gave a slight sense of protection and security.
Thus began for us a new life which fortunately forced us to forget, at least
for some moments, our terrible situation. We constantly had to find shelter

^ The main freight yards, frequently bombarded by the Allies.

{ 41 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

for new refugees, because the Germans continued to evacuate more streets and
more dwellings. We had to take care of sanitation, provisions, water. We car-
ried on all trades, for the only satisfaction was to he able to help one another,
brothers all in this tragic misfortune.

“Monday morning, I walked along the corridor which unites Palazzo Pitti
to the UfSzi to see what was happening around the bridges. One had to go
cautiously knowing that the Germans would certainly have fired upon whoever
was found in the evacuated zone. I arrived at the arch of Via de’ Bardi and
looked toward Borgo San Jacopo. Two Germans were battering down the
door of a house; as the door resisted, they stepped backward and quickly threw
a hand grenade. The entrances to the houses ahead, nearer to Ponte Vecchio,
appeared all broken open. In that moment I guessed everything which was to
happen— in addition to the bridges, they were mining even the houses; tliey
were going to blow up the ancient quarter of the city. I had to move back from
the window because one of the German soldiers glanced in my direction. A
lump closed my throat; there was nothing to hope for now. I looked at the
bare walls of the corridor; I would never see them again. I returned toward
Palazzo Pitti; I had tears in my eyes and my closed throat almost kept me
from breathing.

“There was now no hope, but I still could not give up. I still tried to con-
vince myself that the two German soldiers were breaking down the doors only
to rob the houses. However, I did not succeed in deluding myself; the smashed
doors of Borgo San Jacopo still returned before my eyes.

“Monday night there was a fierce Allied bombardment against the German
positions; for hours and hours the fire w’as uninterrupted and of ever-increas-
ing intensity. The shells now fell close to the city; one could even hear the
whistle. The terrified people were crowded into the lower parts of the palace
and into the air raid shelters. To me, however, the bombardment gave a sense
of jov: if the Allies arrived in Florence now the bridges and the city would
perhaps be saved, for the Germans would not have been able to place all then-
mines. But at dawm the bombardment ceased and by the first light of day I
could see on the Piazza the motionless German soldiers guarding the entrance
to Via Guicciardini.

“Tuesday passed in this agony, and Wednesday; Thursday morning [Au-
gust 3], just before noon, the rumor ran that an ordinance from the German
headquarters forbade anyone to leave his house or to look out of the windows;
the populace was to retire into the lower floors of the buildings. I ran to Via
Romana and read the proclamation: the streets were already almost deserted;

- Procacci wrote "unites.'' e'^en thou gh at the time or writing the corridor was completelv
destroved. .\pparer.:h he could no: bring himselr to realize it.

/ 42 1

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

from the distance I saw a German patrol advance, in front of which the few
passers-by scattered.

“That evening I went out with my wife into the courtyard among the crowd
of refugees. Suddenly, a little before nine, there was a formidable explosion;
everything seemed to crumble and for a moment we thought it was the end.
It seemed that the earth was trembling and that the great palace would be con-
quered from one moment to the next; at the same time from every side glass
and pieces of window rained on the crowd, and the air became unbreathable.
Terror seized the crowd; a few began to cry ‘The bridges, the bridges!’ This
brought back a little calm. Most of the people fled immediately to the ground-
floor rooms and to the shelters; the more courageous applied themselves to
helping the wounded. My wife and I tried to run to our children who were
left in the palace. A second explosion caught us while we were in a narrow
corridor between two courtyards. We were beaten to the wall along with the
other people.

“In the apartment the children were calm; after a few minutes my brother
arrived. From the height of the Boboli Gardens, where he was at the moment
of the first explosion, he had seen a streak of smoke gliding above Via Guicciar-
dini to only a few score yards from the palace. Now there was nothing left to
hope for. My thoughts rested on one thing only: Ponte Santa Trinita — if at
least that were saved! This idea became almost a nightmare; it did not leave
me, and often, shaking myself as from a state of unconsciousness, I found my-
self repeating, ‘Ponte Santa Trinita, Ponte Santa Trinita, Ponte Santa Trinita.’
For a few hours there were no more explosions. With my brother I went to
the high rooms of the Palace toward the Arno; everything was shattered. I
looked from the windows hoping to see something, but darkness enveloped all
Florence. Toward midnight the explosions began again, loud but not terrify-
ing like the first two, and they continued until dawn. In the early light I
looked from a window onto the Piazza. There was no one, but in a moment
from behind the wing of the palace toward Piazza San Felice came two Parti-
sans. I opened the window and cried ‘Where are the Germans.^’ ‘There are
none here any more, but they are still across the Arno!’ came the answer. ‘And
the bridges.'" ‘All blown up except Ponte Vecchio.’ ‘Viva ritalia!" cried one of
the Partisans. ‘Viva I’ltalia!’ I answered. But Italy no longer had the Ponte
Santa Trinita!

“I descended into the courtyard weeping. ‘What’s the matter?" I was asked.
‘Ponte Santa Trinita is gone,’ I answered, without even knowing what I said.
Some must have thought me insane. But at the moment there returned a thread
of hope: had the Partisans been mistaken? It was not possible to leave the palace
by the front entrances; all the doors had been barred. I ran therefore into the

{ 43 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

Boboli Gardens, up, up, all the way to the Kafleehaus. I climbed the stairs in
haste. ‘Don’t look out!’ cried a woman, ‘The Germans are firing!’ I looked out
nonetheless and in the still feeble light of the early morning I saw the massacre
of my Florence. The ruins of Oltrarno were there at a few paces. That mar-
velous panorama which for generations had been admired by the whole world
showed a tremendous gash in a tragic foreground along the Arno around
Ponte Vecchio, and the dust and smoke were still rising from the rubble.

“I could not keep my mind long on these ruins. Already my thoughts had
become accustomed to this destruction, but Ponte Santa Trinita could not be
seen from there. I came down from the Kaffeehaus and went with the others
toward the ‘Cavaliere.’ Suddenly shots passed close by. A sniper hidden in the
Fortezza del Belvedere had aimed at us. For some time we had to hide and
could not move. Not even from the ‘Cavaliere’ could we see Ponte Santa Trinita.

“I returned to the palace ; now exact news had come from outside. No illusion
was possible any longer. Ponte Santa Trinita, they told me, collapsed only at
dawn, after the third attempt by the Germans to mine it. In the immense sor-
row, this gave me a little comfort: the giant had resisted to the very last the
destructive rage of the bestial enemy.

“I had hardly returned to the palace when suddenly came the rumor, ‘The
Allies are here!’ The crowd rushed to one side, I along with the others. On
the grand staircase of the palace you could not pass. While I was trying to get
through, suddenly on the landing of the grand staircase appeared an English
soldier and an English officer, embraced on every side by the crowd. Everyone
shouted enthusiasm and applauded; for a moment I forgot everything. A sort
of delirium seized me; the abjection of more than twenty years, the agony of
the last months were over. I was a free man again. With the others I began to
applaud and shout frantically, and after the greatest of sorrows I e.xperienced
in that moment the greatest joy.”

Thus ends the sad recital, with its images of the majestic integrity of Poggi
and the Cardinal, confronting without fear the German commander in their
vain attempt to intercede for Florence, and of the vulpine treachery of this offi-
cer who had at that moment already started his soldiers on their errand of
destruction; of the love of the Florentines for their wmnderful city, and of the
final Dantesque scenes of destruction and horror in the awful night.

* * *

To reach Ponte Vecchio from where we were in the Palazzo Pitti on the
afternoon of August 13, was impossible. A mass of rubble thirty feet hiah
spilled from the end of \'ia Guicciardini almost into the Piazza Pitti. We
therefore had to climb an improvised ladder from one side of the Boboli Gar-

{ 44 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

dens into the Corridor, which still ran as far as the other side of Piazza Santa
Felicita. Here we descended a dark staircase and emerged into the graceful
little piazza in front of the church — and to a scene of horror and devastation.
The tall column in the center of the piazza had fallen with everything else,
caught in the avalanche of rubble. Shattered masonry, splintered beams, broken
bedsteads, glass, metal, plaster, bricks, lay under shattered ruins of Trecento
houses.

Soldiers and civilians together poured in a narrow stream constricted by the
ruins on one side and the rubble on the other to cross the littered roadway of
Ponte Vecchio, chary of the live mines that still filled the wreckage. Once in
safety on the bridge we could look around and gain a fairly complete picture of
the catastrophe. From the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo, deep among the build-
ings of the north bank, all the way to the Piazza Pitti was a clean sweep of
destruction, over which only one or two buildings and weirdly shaped frag-
ments of buildings, together with a few of the rude mediaeval house-towers,
still rose. Por Santa Maria, almost all of Via Guicciardini, Via de’ Bardi, and
half of Borgo Sant’ Jacopo were demolished. Half the Lungarno Acciaioli was
gone, palaces and all. On the south bank the wonderful old buildings that
overhung the river, those anonymous accretions of ages, floor on floor, balconies,
arches, crowding roof tops all supported on consoles over the water — how
often had we seen them, how often walked at night to gaze through Vasari’s
arches at the picturesque wall of houses reflected in the quiet stream. It was
these houses that had given the Ponte Vecchio its beauty, a city vaulting the
river. Now it stood stripped, the houses all one gigantic trash pile together,
spilling into the Arno.

One could now look straight through to see the giant block of Orsanmichele
and the dome of the cathedral, so little was left of the buildings between. This
had been the heart of Dante’s Florence. These were the streets and squares
scarcely altered since Giotto and Masaccio walked them. Here had been pre-
served, as nowhere else in the city, the Florence of the Middle Ages. Now,
houses, towers, palaces with all they contained and with all their glorious
memories, lay collapsed in mountainous heaps of rubble. Form to formlessness,
beauty to horror, history to mindlessness, all in one blinding crash. The wreck-
age stank sharply in the August sun, for the sewers were broken and this last
nauseating insult was flung in characteristic German style to grace the deliberate
crime.

And why ? This whole devastation was carried out only to block Ponte Vec-
chio, so that the Allies could not cross it. To keep from blowing up Ponte
Vecchio the Germans had leveled a thousand yards of ancient Florence: a score
of palaces, fifty mediaeval houses, a dozen towers. Yet such was the clumsiness

{ 45 }

liberation of FLORENCE

of the operation that it did not even block the bridge. Within a few hours
loopholes were found through which Allied vehicles could cross. The river,
moreover, was nearly dry. Crowds of people were pouring over the dams, and
small tanks for the support of the Partisans eventually made their way over
the rubble of Ponte alle Grazie and up the other side. Had the Allies really
wished to attack in this sector the destruction of the bridges would have been
a very minor impediment.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Zolling,“ who was present as the aide to
Kesselring at a meeting with Hitler and Goering, it was Hitler himself who
gave orders to blow up the bridges of Florence, saving only the “most artistic
one.” This apparently was Ponte Vecchio. Ponte Santa Trinita was not “artis-
tic” enough to be worth saving. And there it lay, a few wretched stones and
smashed fragments in the shallow water, below the mutilated piers (Figs, i, 2).
Sharp as a sword blade, its curve had carried from the Renaissance palaces
of Via Maggio to the magnificence of Via Tornabuoni. The marble statues of
the Four Seasons had stood in all their exquisite grace to dramatize one’s prog-
ress across the bridge. The triangular masses of the piers had directed the
water under those incredible arches, the most subtle curves in the world, severe,
elliptical, tense, compressed by the bulk of the piers and the clean line of the
roadway. The mighty bridge was gone, and over the stumps of the piers sol-
diers were busy swinging a Bailey bridge to make life possible for the stricken
city.

Around the monstrous scene I walked with Procacci. The Germans had
time to sow the rubble thickly with mines, and it would be months before
the population could get through those streets again. The destruction may not
have held up the war in Italy five minutes, but it paralyzed the city. Now that
the initial stupor had worn off I began to realize the full extent of the disaster.
We crossed the river and came out into the Piazzale degli Uffizi, a sea of broken
glass from the windows and skylights of the gallery. The Florentines were all
out in the streets for the first time in weeks of siege, careless of the shells still
dropping in the city. Feeling strangely alone in my American uniform among
those people who had as yet seen so few Allied soldiers I felt the more embar-
rassed at the occasional ripple of applause from the crowds among which I
moved.

We walked to the other side of Piazza della Signoria and gazed through
the truncated walls of Via Vacchereccia to the vast desolation of Por Santa
Maria, above which rose in shattered majesty the mediaeval towers. Beyond
these ruins stood the unfinished walls of Brunelleschi's Palazzo di Parte Guelfa,

^ Interrogated in the summer of 1945 by Lieutenant Colonel DeWald and Wing Com-
mander Cooper.

{ 46 }

LIBERATION OF FLORENCE

for the first time exposed to the sun. The roof had largely collapsed and the
great ceiling by Vasari was badly wrecked. Then we returned to the Uffizi,
climbed the glass-strewn staircase to the top floor, to emerge among the columns
of the famous loggia that runs around the top of the building, gives access to
the galleries of painting and sculpture, and looks out on the Arno. Windows
and window frames alike were wrecked. Hardly a roof tile was not displaced
or shattered. All the skylights were gone. And of the charming Cinquecento
and Seicento decorative frescoes of the loggia, large sections had become loos-
ened from the straw. Some entire bays had fallen to the ground. Others,
loosened, were hanging free. The charming grotteschi of Allori and his pupils
in the Medici armory were terribly battered, many sections lying smashed on
the floor. The painting galleries were a dreary sight without their pictures,
the floors buried in broken glass and plaster, the brocades spotted and ripped.
From the famous loggia over the river, whence so many rapt visitors had once
gazed, we looked out on the horror of the destruction. What had once been
houses and palaces on the opposite bank were a gigantic sand pile slipping into
the green Arno (Figs. 3 and 4 ). I do not wish to exaggerate. With the exception
of Ponte Santa Trinita the best-known monuments of the city were intact or
only slightly damaged (although we did not know w'hat vital portion a shell
might strike next). But the matrix of it all, the mediaeval portion of the city,
had been at least a third obliterated. As I recall from this distance in time the
fearful sight, the bitter despair of that day, I can still see the words which ap-
peared in chalk below the statue of Dante in his niche in the colonnade of the
Uffizi:

In sul passo dell’ Arno

I tedeschi hanno lasciato

II ricordo della loro civilta*

■* “On the banks of the Arno the Germans have left a reminder of their civilization.”

{ }

CHAPTER V

SALVAGE IN AND AROUND FLORENCE

I N August and early September of 1944 the operational front was largely
determined by the course of the Arno River, from its mouth near Pisa
due east to Florence and thence in a great hook south toward Arezzo and
north again to its source in the Casentino. On this curve, one hundred and
twenty miles in length, the war had come to a grinding stop. Gunj&re, shells,
bombs, and mines were working terrific havoc in all the Arno towns from
Florence to the sea. Although Florence had now reverted from Eighth to Fifth
Army, coming therefore under the jurisdiction of Captain Keller, no one oflScer
could possibly carry out the mfaa work over so large an area. By arrangement
between Fifth Army, Eighth Army, and Toscana Region (as Region viii was
now called), I was delegated responsibility for tbe work in the three eastern
provinces, Florence, Siena, and Arezzo, and Captain Keller continued in the
three western provinces, Grosseto, Pisa, and Livorno. Major Newton, technically
responsible for Arezzo, still under Eighth Army control, moved with Eighth
Army to the Adriatic. This arrangement continued in force throughout the
autumn and winter, the dividing line between our territories changing as new
areas were liberated, by informal agreement between Captain Keller and me.
During all the time I was associated with Captain Keller, reporting to h im ,
he gave me an absolutely free hand in areas delegated to me, and whenever I
needed help he intervened with the full authority and material aid of Fifth
Army.

The situation in Florence in the early days was such that we were not eager
to leave our quarters in Montegufoni, and Franco and I returned there every
night. In the city there was no water, no light, the hotels had no windows, the
mosquitoes came in clouds from the stagnant Arno, the heat was intense and
the air suffocating with the odors from the broken sewers and gas mains, the
unflushable closets, and the corpses still buried under the ruins along the Arno.
Fascist snipers from windows all over the town picked off civilians at random.
During this period nearly four hundred persons, mostly civilians, were killed
by the German batteries which continued to shell the town sporadically from
Fiesole.

The military situation bordered on the insane. Only the center of Florence was
liberated, and in the hands of the Partisans. The only Allied military personnel
in the town, aside from those vmg officers and soldiers essential to the main-
tenance of public services, were the police and engineering personnel of 71
Garrison. Nowhere else had the Allies crossed the Arno. The Germans still

{ 48 }

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

held the outskirts of the city, and the intervening districts formed a bloody No
Man’s Land whose residents made frantic expeditions for water between the
bursts of machine-gun and rifle fire. At night German patrols and light tanks
came down through the city to the banks of the river, and apparently the only
reason the Germans did not retake the center was to avoid the responsibility
of caring for the miserable population, suffering from thirst, hunger, sleep-
lessness, overcrowding, and the impossibility of maintaining the most ele-
mentary hygiene.

The city was caught between two opposing armies, and for all we knew
might be ground to bits before the deadlock was broken. All day long over
Florence the Alhed shells whistled from guns situated just outside the city,
bombarding the German positions around Fiesole, and the city shook to the
rumble of the Long Toms. Not an Allied shell fell in Florence, but the uncon-
trolled German bombardment hit Santo Spirito, Santa Croce, the flank of the
cathedral, the campanile of Giotto, the roof of the baptistery, the central section
of the Ufiizi, the Palazzo Strozzi, and the Loggia del Bigallo, carrying away
the head of the marble Madonna relief by Alberto Arnold!. Every morning the
personnel of the Superintendency patrolled the streets of Florence to pick up
the fragments of what German shells had knocked down during the night.
In this way the beautiful head was found and returned to the Superintendency
intact.

Captain Ellis and I established our office with Florence Province .vmg in the
top floor of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, whose chapel with its Gozzoli fres-
coes could be seen only by candlelight. Here we were some seven hundred yards
from the first German positions in the Fortezza da Basso. No one as yet lived
in the Palazzo — a wise precaution, for on one occasion the German patrols
came into it at night, after the amg officers had returned to Villa Torreggiani
across the Arno.

On Sunday morning, August 20 , at about eleven o’clock, the shelling be-
came more intense, and the explosions quite close around us. An appalling
crash nearly shook us to the office floor. We were stunned for a moment, but
nothing seemed to be broken and we resumed work in the midst of the deafen-
ing concussions. Later I found out that the shell had landed on the roof directly
above our heads, exploding without piercing the ceiling. The brunt of the
shelling had been borne by the church of San Lorenzo. The construction over
the inner cupola at the crossing of nave and transept had suffered seven direct
hits, wrecking the roof and imperiling the cupola. It was just after High Mass,
and a shell landed in the crowd outside, killing twenty-four persons.

In our office we received countless requests for Off Limits signs from frantic
villa proprietors, each of whom insisted that his villa was a monumento na-

i 49 }

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

zionale and should not be requisitioned. There was not time enough to investi-
gate one such situation before another applicant arrived. I was constantly be-
ing confused with a Lieutenant Dart, displaced persons officer, and the office
besieged by helpless refugees. Urgent problems of salvage and repair had to
be discussed with the Superintendency personnel. In desperation I accepted
the invitation of the Superintendent to move my establishment into the ground
floor of the Uffizi, beside Rossi and within easy reach of Procacci. This brought
only a momentary surcease. The visitors trebled and quadrupled, and now
Allied requisitioning officers arrived with requests to occupy one monument
after another, understandable enough with an army group, an army headquar-
ters, and an air force, including their subsidiary units, all stationed in and
around Florence. Few requisitioning mistakes were made, but even the Palazzo
Pitti was three times in danger of being taken over by the army.

Through all this the office had to be established, records kept, letters an-
swered, reports written, preventivi (construction estimates) analyzed and ap-
proved. Each preventivo had to bear my signature below that of the super-
intendent, and the channels through which they then proceeded became daily
more complex. Eventually they had to pass (in five copies) through nine
separate steps in Italian and amg bureaucracy. With luck it took an individual
preventivo anywhere from two to four months to run the whole labyrinth,
and by then the lira would have fallen again so that the collected sums were
no longer sufficient for the work. These sums were, incidentally, all from Italian
state funds. But many preventivi were not so fortunate. Often they were re-
turned for compliance with some entirely new regulation or because they had
not been understood. Often they were sidetracked or even mislaid for months
by harassed civil engineers who were responsible for water mains and bridges
and had little time to deal with the monuments.

But we could not sit and watch the monuments fall to pieces while the
bureaucracy, Italian and Allied, haggled over the preventivi. With my ap-
proval the Superintendency went ahead engaging the contractors to do the
jobs. The contractors had to pay their workmen and buy their materials, and
often when they came to the Superintendency there was no money for them.
When I left Florence the Superintendency was still besieged by its creditors and
has only recently freed itself from debt. The impressive list of repaired monu-
ments should, however, justify the policy of immediate action.

I was aided with the burden of administrative detail by an Italian secretary
Signorina Ester Sermenghi, a real heroine of the days of Partisan resistance in
Florence and a devoted helper, and by Pfc. Paul O. Bleecker of New York
City, who was assigned to my office in mid-September, doing an excellent job
until he was taken away to be reassigned to mf.aa in liberated Bologna, amg

{ 50 }

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

Toscana Region did not move to Florence until May 1945. This left me fairly
independent, save for my responsibility to amg Fifth Army and its senior civil
affairs officer, General Hume, who in September installed himself in the fres-
coed halls of Palazzo Vecchio. I had many an occasion to thank General Hume
for his interest in Florentine art and for his prompt intervention when his au-
thority was needed.

During these days I had to bid a regretful farewell to Montegufoni and move
my lodgings as well as my offices into Florence. Yet the presence of my com-
mand in Siena, later in Lucca, meant that no military organization in Florence
felt itself responsible for billeting me. I was therefore pushed from one requi-
sitioned hotel to another until rescued by the generosity of Princess Lucrezia
Corsini. Moved by the work that mfaa was doing in saving Italian art, she
placed at my disposal an apartment in Palazzo Corsini, where I remained until
I left Florence in August of the following year.

With September came the rain. The first storms wrought havoc in the un-
roofed churches and palaces, but by the end of the month the thirty-five day
downpour had begun which was to bring the offensive in the Apennines to a
dead stop before Bologna, convert every by-pass around a broken bridge into a
bottomless slough, every stream bed into a wall of water, every jeep trip into
a sort of submarine excursion through rain and mud. The Arno, empty in
August, rose in October till one could hear its roar five or six blocks away. By
November i the flood was bringing down beams and trees, and sometimes
actual patches of earth with squashes growing on them drove by under the
arches of Ponte Vecchio and over the ruins of Ponte Santa Trinita. Soon the
new Bailey bridges were threatened, and cars crossed over them only one at
a time. The yellow whirlpools reached the balustrade and spray was flung into
the streets. Under Palazzo Corsini the embankment collapsed and the river
rushed into the alleys. Pisa was flooded six feet deep, Grosseto twelve.

With the establishment of a permanent office in Florence, our nomadic phase
was succeeded by as systematic a program of inspection tours as was possible
under the circumstances. The expansion of my duties necessitated the assign-
ment of still another officer to mfa.\ in Tuscany, attached to amg Florence Citv.
This position was filled first by Capt. Edward Croft-Murray from the Print
Room of the British Museum, then by Capt. Cecil Pinsent, a British architect
who had resided in Florence for nearly thirty years, then by Captain Enthoven,
then again by Captain Pinsent. All of these officers did magnificent work, and
the appearance of the city of Florence bears the lasting imprint of their efforts.

Florence was the center of all our efforts. It was essential to retain every frag-
ment still partially surviving from the destroyed palaces and towers — not much,
alas, for the brutal thoroughness of the German demolitions was carried out

{ }

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

by means of bombs placed in the basements, blowing the buildings vertically.
Gothic and Renaissance arcaded courtyards disappeared without a trace. But
the towers had to be retained as a nucleus for any future rebuilding in the area,
to preserve at least the basic plan of mediaeval Florence. The Florentines them-
selves were intensely aware of this, and the head of the Tuscan Committee of
National Liberation, Dr. Carlo Lodovico Ragghianti, himself an art historian,
appointed a commission for the study of the area. No Italian outside the Govern-
ment had the authority to appoint commissions, and then only with Allied
approval, but I readily waived formalities in view of the spontaneous enthusiasm
for the project. The “Art Commission for Destroyed Florence,” as this group
was called, soon took on in the popular imagination another and more grimly
appropriate title, the “Rubble Commission.” These men, mostly young archi-
tects who had volunteered their time and their efforts to aid the Superintend-
ency, did excellent work in the early days of the liberation of Florence.

We were, however, not the only organizations to have an interest in the
devastated area. Under the rubble lay buried the broken water and gas mains,
necessary for the continued existence of the city. The British engineers entrusted
with the restoration of these essential services worked with remarkable speed
and efSciency, yet were apt to pay scant attention to fragments of mediaeval
wall or buried libraries. Such an attitude would have been justifiable in the slum
areas of a modern metropolis, but in the center of Florence it threatened to
complete the German job of destruction. Mechanical excavation for the water
line which followed the route of Via de’ Bardi was found too slow, and the
chief engineer for 71 Garrison ordered the use of a bulldozer. To insure the
safe motion of this heavy equipment, he wanted to demolish all standing walls
at once, and all rubble in the path of the machine was to be pushed into the
Arno. On this exact spot had stood the home of the Colombaria Society, a
group of Florentine artists, historians, and bibliophiles, founded in 1735. The
rich library of the Society, a collection of manuscripts, incunabulae, letters,
diaries, and archives, was in addition to its great bibliographic value and im-
portance for the early development of research in Etruscan archaeology, a
primary source for the study of the history of Florence. With the collapse of
the building the entire library was buried under tons of rubble — this was now to
be pushed into the river by the bulldozer.

Interviews with the British engineers confirmed the absolute necessity of
excavating for the water in that spot and disclosed our own desire not to slow
down their vital work. An agreement was worked out under which the Super-
intendency would supply the necessary personnel to remove any objects found,
while the engineers were to operate the bulldozer in such a way that the work-
men and inspectors could perform their task. Yet in spite of all pledges, the

{ 52 }

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

bulldozer worked too fast and raised too much dust for systematic salvage to
be possible. At such a distance in time it is useless to indulge in recriminations.
But under the universal strain tempers were frayed and regrettable incidents
occurred before the direct intervention of General Hume brought about a
modus vivendi whereby the machines circumnavigated entirely the site of the
Colombaria, leaving our workers free for their exacting job. Actually the water
main was discovered nowhere near the river, and I have not yet been able to
understand why it was considered necessary to clear the neighboring sites
completely in order to reach it.

As the bulldozer, manned in two shifts, worked continuously from eight to
eight, we had to have two shifts of workmen at the site of the Colombaria
throughout the fierce heat of the day. Each shift was under the direction of
an assistant from the Superintendency, and the whole job was run by a volun-
teer worker, Signor Mario Bellini. As the excavation proceeded, the books were
brought to the tiny German Protestant church on the Lungarno, later to the
rooms of the Museo Bardini, and there sorted out. Here Dr. Gustavo Bonaven-
tura, of the Istituto della Patologia del Libro in Rome, received the damaged vol-
umes, and administered whatever first aid he could. When the late September
rains began, the job was almost over. What had been retrieved from the ap-
parently hopeless rubble more than justified the struggle for its salvage. The
exquisite loggia with its arcades looking out on the Arno was irrevocably
gone, only about a sixth of the modern library was found, the archives of the
Colombaria Society and various other literary societies had almost completely
disappeared, but the manuscripts and incunabulae, by far the most precious
possessions of the Colombaria, turned up in surprising numbers, and for the
most part in a better state of preservation than could have been hoped for. In
addition to more than a thousand books and over four thousand pamphlets,
forty-two out of eighty-two of the historical and scientific manuscripts w'ere
found, thirty out of thirty-eight precious codices, and thirty-four out of thirty-
six inctmabulae, almost all in a condition that made restoration possible. After
the delicate and painstaking work of Bonaventura, who spent six weeks flat-
tening, dusting, drying every page, the precious books were deposited in the
National Library in Florence as part of the national cultural heritage.

Less encouraging was the story of the Torre di Parte Guelfa. This massive
tower which, with two others, had once composed the famous triangular Piazza
dei Rossi at the southern end of Ponte Vecchio (Fig. 6), survived only in frag-
mentary state. Two of the four walls were still standing. The facade on Via
Guicciardini was split from the top down to a point approximately at the level
of the cornice of the ground story. The crack was as much as a foot wide at
the top. Yet this building, an essential element in the scheme of the destroyed

{ 55 )

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

mediaeval area, was considered of first importance by the “Rubble Commis-
sion.” A detailed letter was sent to 71 Garrison, in which the Commission of-
fered to take over all responsibility for shoring and chaining the ruin so that
reconstruction would be possible. The leading architect for the Florence rail-
way station, Giovanni Michelucci, was convinced the operation was feasible.
What was the astonishment of the Florentines, therefore, to find on the day
following the delivery of their letter that the wall at right angles to Via Guic-
ciardini had already been pulled down, and that the engineers were attaching a
cable to the upper portions of the facade to pull down the rest of the building!

A second spirited intervention of General Hume produced a compromise.
The engineers were to demolish only the leaning section and we would assume
responsibility for the rest, of which enough remained to permit reconstruction
of the tower. On September 8 the demolition took place in the presence of
Captain Croft-Murray, while I was out of the city on another job. According to
Croft-Murray the cable attached near the bottom of the north section and
dragged with the full force of the bulldozer had no effect on the supposedly
threatening structure. It had to be untied and reattached approximately half-
way up. The north section then came down, and a second later, so great was
the shock, the rest of the facade followed. The tower was thus gone past hope
of reconstruction, and the engineers were faced with a mass of rubble whose
clearance would require as long as it would have taken us to complete shoring
operations. They never did clear it, and made no attempt to excavate for water at
that point. The most picturesque square in old Florence had disappeared, with-
out even the comfort that its destruction was necessary.

To forestall further disasters of this nature we obtained a plan of the devas-
tated area from the Commune. On this Captain Enthoven, who had by now
succeeded Captain Croft-Murray as mf.va officer for Florence City .amg, indi-
cated by numbers every structure for which we and the Superintendency as-
sumed responsibility. General Hume wrote a firm letter quoting his authority
from General Clark and requesting the adoption of our plan. There were no
further difficulties and our work in the area continued. The appearance of the
city of Florence will retain for all time the evidence of the energetic aid of
General Hume and the care and precision of Captain Enthoven.

By the end of September, however. Captain Enthoven was called away and
replaced by Captain Pinsent, whose wisdom and tact avoided all friction with
the engineers. The work in the devastated area now proceeded in a rational
manner. Aside from a few fragments of minor importance, the work concerned
two damaged facades which faced each other across Via Guicciardini, five dam-
aged towers which still stood, although roofless and water-soaked, the church
of Santo Stefano al Ponte, the roofless Palazzo di Parte Guelfa, and the small

SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

section of Palazzo Acciaioli which still remained standing (Figs. 7, 8) with
two-thirds of the Poccetti frescoes adhering miraculously to its walls (Fig. 10).
Detailed surveys of the area were made by Captain Pinsent and Engineer Mo-
rozzi of the Superintendency, and the plan of work decided upon. One tower
had to be pulled down, the foundations being completely shattered. Three
were merely unroofed and badly shaken, and their repair w'as no problem.
But the immense Torre degli Amidei, in the center of Por Santa Maria, was
in even worse condition than the Torre di Parte Guelfa (Figs, ii, 12). The
responsibility for the lives of the passers-by was so grave that few wished to
assume it. The engineers agreed to drive their roadway in a loop around the
ruin, and the Superintendency then proceeded, about the middle of September,
to shore and chain the one completely standing w'all. Beams strong enough to
hold this wall were unobtainable until I heard from one of the architects that
some colossal timbers had been abandoned by an Allied unit at the top of the
hill on the other side of the river. Unable to discover to whom they belonged,
I obtained a truck and hauled the monstrous timbers back, on a long route
around the city, to Por Santa Maria. A concrete base was built for them, and
the first series of struts went up at once (Fig. 12).

For a while everyone despaired of being able to save the tower, even after
the cracks in the masonry had been reworked and the top bound by clamps.
Eventually, however, the shoring was replaced by a brick spur, and in March the
spur extended, as a continuous core, to complete all the missing portions of the
tower, carefully planned to serve as a framework for the original stones, which
were reused to cover the facade (Fig. 13). When I returned in February 1946,
I found that the Florentines had completed the building on their own, the
pointed arches and the windows had been completely reconstructed from draw’-
ings and photographs with the original stones, the lions’ heads were in place,
and the imposing tower needed only a few years of weathering to give a patina
to the new' mortar (Fig. 14). We had thus proved that reconstruction of the
shattered mediaeval buildings was not only feasible but desirable.

One can only wonder what the final solution will be. The melancholv Flor-
entine ruins have been the subject of a long controversy betw’een those w'hose
purist gorges rise at the slightest mention of a “forgery” and the lovers of the
old Florence who believe it possible to reconstruct every street. The truth lies
somew'here betw'een. The Superintendency possesses so many and such detailed
photographs of certain buildings and streets, particularly the famous line of
houses hanging over the river, that an exact reconstruction is surely possible
down to the last roof tile and the last spot on the intonaco. In many cases exist-
ing fragments can serve as the model for W'hat has disappeared. In all cases the
ground plan is known and measurable. But in little-photographed streets it

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SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

will never be possible to rebuild exactly, and the solution should consist in the
maintenance of the same roof line, the same coloring of intonaco, and a simple,
Tuscan house style that any master mason in Florence can still produce.

The problem of roof tiles to replace those smashed by the explosions and the
prolonged shelling was as diflScult in Florence as anywhere else. Poggi had one
windfall, however. The Fortezza di Belvedere, by Buontalenti, had long been
spoiled by a group of barracks erected in its garden by the Fascist army. After
September 8, 1943, the Superintendency resumed control of the entire area,
and the barracks served as a mine for roof tiles, sufficient to cover all the shell
holes in the church roofs and the frescoed loggia of the Uffizi. But this did not
cover the galleries of the Uffizi, in which one could wade up to the ankles dur-
ing the aummn rains, or the scores of damaged monuments throughout the
provinces. In late October, looking out through the glassless windows of the
Uffizi, it seemed as if the whole structure, and indeed the frail city of Florence,
would be washed away by the ceaseless downpour. Repeated interventions by
Captain Pinsent, Captain Enthoven, and me brought driblets of tiles flowing
from the few reactivated tileworks, but only a small fraction of what we
needed. Yet by spring the Uffizi was dry and safe, the first consignments of
glass began to arrive from the reactivated glass factories, and some of the sky-
lights could be repaired. Most windows had to be covered with oil paper for
a long time, however, and almost every monumental church in Florence re-
quired repairs of some kind.

Aside from the devastated area, the principal salvage problem was Ponte
Santa Trinita, of which nothing remained save the two piers and the abutments,
heavily damaged above but well preserved at the bases. All four of the Man-
nerist statues were smashed, and sections of these fell into the river. Any salvage
operations were complicated by the fact that the Bailey bridge across the wreck-
age w'as the principal means of communication across the river, and further
by the security problem involved in the location of the front in the very out-
skirts of the city. Yet in spite of all this, salvage operations were started only
a week or so after the liberation of the city, under the direction of the young
sculptor, Giannetto Mannucci.

Small fragments which might be destroyed by engineering troops building
the Bailey bridge were the first to be removed to safety. Large sections of the
figures of Spring, Summer, and Winter were found on the Lungarno and car-
ried in handcarts and barrows, those on the north bank to the Uffizi and those
on the south to the Pitti. The principal portions of Giovanni Caccini’s Autumn
appeared under layers of rubble in the bed of the river. By swimming and by
the use of a homemade raft, after the early rains of September, all the pieces
of one of the two principal cartouches were recovered, and the head of Autumn

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SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

was found in five feet of water. Horrible sights attended the work. At one time,
when Mannucci was diving for fragments, a severed human head kept rotating
in an eddy at this very point, staring him in the face when he rose to the sur-
face.

Aside from the many minute fragments. Autumn was broken into five
principal pieces, and Summer and Winter into four each. Francavilla’s lovely
Spring, being much more delicate, was shattered into innumerable fragments.
But the only important piece still missing from the group is the head of Spring,
which is reported to have been seen on the Lungarni in the first days of the
hberation, but which subsequently vanished. Searches and appeals for the re-
turn of the head alike proved useless.

While the restoration of the statues proceeded, the weight of the flood in
the Arno threatened by the end of October to corrode and carry away what re-
mained of the piers. These had to be partially dismantled, with each piece
numbered, preliminary to reinforcement. In November Riccardo Gizdulich,
an architect, undertook the work, and has been responsible for all subsequent
studies of the bridge. Gizdulich has executed complete measured drawings of
all remaining fragments, and also twenty-one plaster casts of various sections,
recovered from the river bottom. The complete elevations made by Gizdulich
from these studies, from photographs, previous drawings, and measurements
of the ruins, are sufiicient to insure an extremely accurate reproduction of the
original bridge. The remarkable restoration of statues and decorative ele-
ments by Mannucci will enable the Florentines to reconstruct a bridge hardly
distinguishable from the destroyed masterpiece. The money to do so is rapidly
being raised by the Florentines, aided by impressive contributions from Ameri-
can private citizens.

* * *

On the pine-wooded ridge that separates the valleys of the Greve and the
Ema, in a spot first settled by the ancient Etruscans, stands the town of Im-
pruneta, whose chief glory is the basilica of Santa Maria, consecrated in the
year 1054. The wide square before the arcaded portico of the basilica is yearly
the scene of a famous fair, whose seventeenth century aspect is preserved for
us in a celebrated engraving by Jacques Callot. The interior of the basilica, ex-
tensively converted in the late Renaissance and lined with altarpieces by six-
teenth and seventeenth century painters, was filled with a golden light re-
flected from the magnificent cai'ved and gilded baroque ceiling (Fig. 15). On
the high altar stood a gigantic Gothic altarpiece, by the Trecento painters,
Pietro Nelli and Tommaso del Mazza. Although these painters are otherwise
hardly known, their polyptych with its twenty-eight panels and fourteen golden

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pinnacles was not only the largest Italian Gothic altarpiece but one of the most
complete examples of the iconography of the Virgin (Figs. 20, 21).

On either side of the apse stood two superb shrines, the chapel of the Madonna
and the chapel of the Cross. The severe beauty of the fluted Corinthian columns
and massive entablatures, carved from hard, grey pietra alberese according to
the designs of Michelozzo, framed the coloristic and formal perfection of the
glazed terra cotta reliefs and ceilings of Luca della Robbia.

Only a military historian with access to all the documents of the Air Force
could clarify the reasons for the two American air attacks on the town of
Impruneta after the Germans had left. It was perhaps another case of the
frequent failure of Allied Intelligence. But whatever the reason, the two bom-
bardments ruined a considerable section of the town and killed a large number
of refugees. We entered the basilica on August 15 to find a scene of utter
devastation (Fig. 16). The roof tiles were blown away, and the light pouring
through the shattered beams fell on masses of wood and rubble piled twenty
feet high in the interior. On top of this lay a covering of splinters and rags, all
that was left of the baroque ceiling. The apse with its roof and triumphal arch
had disappeared almost completely, so that we looked out into empty sky.
Somewhere under all this wreckage might be the pieces of the huge polyptych,
on which the bomb had exploded.

Like a log-jam on an Alaskan river, the smashed beams were piled over the
ruins of the tempietti of Michelozzo and Luca della Robbia. The altarpieces by
Rosselli, Allori, and Empoli were torn by flying fragments, and the Assumption
by Cigoli reduced to rags. Fortunately the Passignano altarpiece escaped, having
been removed for the Mostra del Cinquecento. The frieze of charming Sette-
cento paintings, largely by Domenico Ferretti, which ran around the eaves,
was badly mutilated. Three of the pictures were torn to ribbons, and the others
were in imminent danger of destruction by the weather. But the crowning hor-
ror was the fact that the entire right wall of the basilica had been blown out-
ward by the explosions, and was leaning so sharply that we expected its col-
lapse from one moment to the next. The heavy Trecento roof timbers, still
standing over the greater portion of the nave, held onto this wall only by their
finger tips. Should they fall, the leaning wall, too, would crash, and the shock
would probably destroy the left wall as well. There would be nothing left but
the facade.

The rest of that day we crawled over the beams and the rubble, to determine
what was still salvageable. I don't think it occurred to any of us that we were
in danger of being crushed at any moment, so great was our concern over what
had been lost. Of the Robbia reliefs the (dTucifixion was the most nearly intact j
only the left arm of the Christ and the head of the sorrowing Virgin were broken

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SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

away (Fig. i8). The pediment was partly smashed and the two saints had fallen
forward to be covered by the rubble. The predella was below the level of the
rubble and could not be seen. The saints flanking the tabernacle of the Ma-
donna were badly broken. The terra cotta ceilings had disappeared under the
rubble, the columns of the right tempietto were broken off, and those of the
left tottered into the wreckage, still valiantly upholding the front of the en-
tablature which everywhere else was destroyed. The entablature of the chapel
of the Cross had held a frieze of putti and garlands by Michelozzo, which,
being of stucco, must have been pulverized.

As we worked, the heat intensified the stench of six bodies, victims of the
first raid, which were awaiting interment when the basilica was hit for the
second time, burying them finally before the chapel of the Madonna, under
tons of rubble. To add to the gruesomeness, the Renaissance tomb of Bishop
Antonio degli Agli, who died in 1477, which had stood in the right transept,
had been ripped open and the bones and pathetic rags of brown and dried flesh
spilled out upon the wreckage. Although the skull had fallen, the rich fifteenth
century brocade cushion was still in place.

Although one of the two sacristies had been battered by the bomb that
wrought so much damage to the Renaissance furnishings, the Trecento and
Quattrocento pictures and other precious objects preserved there were only
slightly scratched. The cloisters, a small and interesting one from the Quat-
trocento and a much larger two-story Trecento structure, were intact save for
the usual damage to tiles and beams.

Undaunted by the immense proportions of the disaster, Procacci at once
proceeded to organize salvage operations — ten short days after the destruction
of the center of Florence and his own liberation. Ten local workmen were hired,
directed by four overseers working in shifts. The work began at once. Before
the middle of September the rubble had been cleared from the church. The
ten workmen labored with the energy of forty, cutting a sort of corridor
through the rubble (all with handbarrows and shovels), until they reached
the tempietti. From there on every microscopic fragment of terra cotta and
stone was carefully examined to see if it might not form a part, however in-
significant, of the Robbia reliefs or of the Michelozzo shrines. The rubble was
sorted out, every usable brick or stone or timber being set apart in the cloisters.
The architectural fragments were placed in the cleared nave of the church,
and near them the Robbia reliefs, whose standing sections were detached care-
fully from the walls. The altarpieces were taken down, and with ladders bor-
rowed from the Florence fire department the eighteenth century pictures, in
spite of their size and weight, were removed and lowered, even from the
leaning wall. The work of the first weeks went on at continual danger to life

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SALVAGE IN FLORENCE

and limb, and all the while that the rubble was being cleared and the works
of art and fragments transported to Florence, almost the entire piazza of Im-
pruneta was filled with steel Bailey bridges to be used in the September ofien-
sive.

Before long it became necessary to reach a decision concerning the leaning
wall. Luckily the primitive Romanesque campanile was still standing. This
was made to serve as a prop for the leaning wall by filling the intervening space
with timber shoring. But the situation could not continue, for the strain on
the campanile was excessive, and the horizontal cracks in the wall would
sooner or later cause it to collapse. Early in September Poggi proposed that the
roof timbers be shored up by a system of wooden scaffolding from the floor
while the entire leaning wall was dismantled, the stones numbered and the wall
rebuilt. It was a very expensive plan, but seemed to be the only solution, and
work began immediately under the competent supervision of Engineer Mario
Rossi. Before the end of September the interior of the basilica was a forest of
scaffolding supporting the timbers. The demolition of the leaning wall began.

Meanwhile, the thousands of minute fragments of the Robbia reliefs, re-
covered through three siftings of mountains of rubble, had been taken in the
decrepit Superintendency truck, using amg gasoline, to Florence, where the
laborious work of recomposition was begun (Fig. 19). But not all the pieces
had been found ; and chief among the missing elements was the head of Saint
Romulus, one of the two saints flanking the tabernacle of the Madonna. One
day in November I returned to find a note from Procacci on my desk. The
head had been found, and in a most extraordinary way. It was discovered in-
side the closed altar below the tabernacle. Apparently in the violence of the
explosion the altarstone had split apart at the exact moment that the head of
the saint had fallen from his body, and then clapped-to a fraction of a second
after the head landed in the open altar, just before the shower of rubble from
the ceiling and walls descended to bury altar and all. The complete tabernacles
with all their figures could now be reconstructed, with the sole exception of
the tiny Madonna relief, which had lost the chin of the Virgin and the head
of the Christ Child. All winter the meticulous work went on; by summer the
rehefs were complete and the ceilings nearing completion. In the winter of
1946-1947 the rescued statue of Saint Romulus went on tour in the United
States, as part of the exhibition, “War’s Toil of Italian Art.”

In December the demolition of the threatening portions of one of the sacris-
ties brought to light the structure of a fine Gothic chapel, until then unknown,
with enough of its elements preserved to permit complete restoration. By Janu-
ary the demolition of the leaning wall was completed and Rossi’s new wall
begun. By July not only this wall but a new apse following the exact lines of

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die old had been virtually completed (Fig. 17). During the autumn of 1945 the
new roof beams went up, by winter the roof was completed, and the church
was again usable. True, it will never be the same. Too badly smashed to be re-
constructed, the Baroque ceiling was omitted, leaving bare the mediaeval
timber roof, thus giving the church somewhat the appearance it had before
the Renaissance and Baroque reconstructions. But of the great Gothic altar-
piece only the most miserable fragments were ever found (Fig. 21).

In the immediate environs of Florence the only other artistic tragedy to com-
pare to the disaster at Impruneta was caused by the deliberate vandalism of
the Germans at Badia a Settimo. The campanile of the former abbey church,
cylindrical at the base and octagonal at the top, was an unforgettable landmark
over the curving river (Fig. 22). On August 4, 1944, the Germans, under the
pretense that it could have been of use to the Americans as an artillery observa-
tion post, mined it at the bottom and blew it up completely (Fig. 23). Even
less excusable was the German demolition of the Colombaione, the bastion
on the far corner of the abbey. This square tower hardly rose above the tree
tops. Above the portal which it formerly defended stood a colossal relief sculp-
ture, representing Christ enthroned between Saints Benedict and Bernard (Fig.
24). Although the lost heads of the figures had been replaced by simple sphe-
roids to indicate the approximate proportions, the relief was still the grandest
example of Romanesque sculpture in the surroundings of Florence. The Ger-
man soldiers placed their mines in the chamber directly behind the relief, and
it was at the exact height of the relief that the tower was blown away. Un-
fortunately the sculpture was of stucco. Not a fragment could be identified in
the pulverized rubble that covered the lawn below.

There has been considerable discussion of whether or not the German demoli-
tion of bell towers was justified. The Allies quite generally shelled them, as
our artillerymen knew perfectly well the Germans used them for observation
posts. In certain cases the Germans blew up the campanile out of which they
had just removed one of their own observation posts. But in other instances
the blanket order to blow up towers seems to have been obeyed without regard
to military usefulness. Only two miles behind Badia a Settimo, on the peak
of a range of considerable hills, stands the tower of San Martino alia Palma,
commanding a far wider range for artillery, yet this was not mined. The accusa-
tion of deliberate vandalism is supported by a report of the priest, Don Novello
Chellini, in which he tells how the Germans used the church and the former
abbey as artillery targets by day and then recrossed the shallow Arno by night
to examine the damage they had wrought. The shelling continued for days,
causing ruin to the abbey roofs and a partial collapse of one of the cloisters.

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The crash of the campanile brought with it more than half the left aisle of
the church, and the beautiful Romanesque wall, which Niccoli’s restorations,
while he was an architect for the Superintendency in Florence, had so recently
brought to light, was crushed under the masses of descending masonry. The
explosions and the shellfire smashed most of the roof tiles, leaving the beamed
ceiling, with its rich Trecento painted decorations, largely uncovered. At the
same time one of the walls of the chapel of San Quintino collapsed, damaging
severely the frescoes by Giovanni da San Giovanni, hlost of the structure was
luckily intact, including the beautiful apse by a follower of Brunelleschi, with
its decorations in Della Robbia style. The famous frescoes attributed to Buf-
falmacco, and already almost indecipherable, suffered no further damage.
Most of the abbey buildings, long given over to private ownership, were in-
tact, including the magnificent French Gothic hall and chapter house.

Shortly after Poggi and I visited the abbey, Nello Baroni, the same architect
who was working on the roofs for the Florentine towers, started work at Badia
a Settimo. Our plan did not include for the time being any repairs to the left
aisle wall. It was intended rather to wall off the aisle from the rest of the
church, wall up the chapd of San Quintino, and replace the roof tiles to save
the painted beams. This much was completed by February 1945 ’ The huge
summit of the campanile, lying still intact on top of the heap of rubble, we
were able to cast in piaster, preserving its exact shape to serve in any future
reconstruction. Little else was left of the campanile save the great bronze bells.

Of the cities in Florence Province, Prato and Empoli suffered the worst
damage from high explosives. In Prato a raid by American Liberators reduced
the house of Filippino Lippi to a heap of gravel, in which only a few pieces of
the original architectural decoration were still intact. But the street tabernacle
with Its Mcidofinu and Chdd Adofcd by Suints, which Filippino had painted in
fresco for his house, was completely smashed. The salvation of this work is
one of the most remarkable stones of the Italian campaign. Leonetto Tinton,
an expert restorer who has often worked for the Superintendency, had come on
the scene an hour or so after the bombardment of March 7, 1944, and started
at once to dig in the rubble for possible fragments of the fresco. He wrapped
up in handkerchiefs every tiniest piece and, with only a bicycle for transporta-
tion, carried the remains back to his cottage outside the city. Here, with in-
credible patience, he labored for months detaching the colored surface of each
fragment from its plaster and reassembling the whole on a canvas-covered
panel which had the exact curvature of the original surface of the tabernacle.

When Giuseppe Marchini. our inspector for Prato and Pistoia, took me out
to the cottage, the fresco had been already largely recomposed from literally

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thousands of fragments. The work had been done with such skill that the
Madonna stood again in all the sensitive delicacy of Filippino’s imagination,
the arch of cherubs in the sky as perfect as before, the saints almost complete
(Figs. 25-27). Not a stroke of repaint marred the work. Where pieces were
missing no effort had been made to replace them, the intervening plaster being
left a neutral grey. But the composition was complete and again a thing which
could be enjoyed, owing not only to Tintori’s skill but to his prompt action
which spared the shattered fresco a single day’s damage by weather or abrasion.

The wholesale German demolitions which destroyed so many of the lovely
Arno valley towns wiped out in Empoli fine Florentine streets, houses, and
squares, ostensibly to deny passage through the city by blocking all the main
streets. It apparently never occurred to the Germans that there was a perfectly
good road that circumnavigated the town entirely. Leaving two of the cam-
panili that gave the skyline of Empoli its character, they blew up the two finest.
These fell into the churches, destroying in each case half the building and leav-
ing the rest open to the sky (Figs. 28, 29). While the green and white marble
Romanesque facade of the Collegiata was safe, the interior was a heap of rubble
and broken beams — as badly damaged as Impruneta. The entire right transept
was destroyed, half the cloister was gone, the baptistery had collapsed, and
what had been the museum was a crumpled mass of beams and shattered walls.
The interior of the church was of a fairly cold eighteenth century style, good,
but not of exceptional importance. But some of the works of art contained in
it were of supreme value. The Superintendency, when it became aware that
Empoli might be bombed, had removed as many of these as possible. The
triptych by Lorenzo Monaco, the bas-relief by Mino da Fiesole, the marvellous
altarpiece with its marble Saint Sebastian by Antonio Rossellino, painted
angels by Botticini, and architectural frame by Cecco di Bravo, as well as many
other works of the Trecento, Quattrocento, and Cinquecento were safe, either
in Florence or in various deposits. Even the fresco of the Pieta by Masolino,
the greatest work of art in Empoli, had been carefully detached from its wall
and taken to Florence.

But there were certain things that could not be moved. The Annunciation
by Botticini, two enormous pictures by Cigoli, a large Della Robbia relief, and
a picture by Jacopo da Empoli were too big to go through the door of the little
museum, which had apparently been built around them. These were all caught
in the collapse of the building and smashed to bits. Under the ruins of the bap-
tistery lay buried a huge baptismal font by a follower of Donatello, a splendid
example of early Quattrocento architectural ornament. The other Masolino,
a Madonna lunette in Sant’ Agostino, had also been removed, as had the
Annunciation statues of Bernardo Rossellino. The whole apse of the church

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had collapsed, and its wide Gothic arches held up only fragments of the roof.
Long and scrupulous work on the part of Procacci had previously succeeded
in unearthing fragmentary and hitherto unknown frescoes by Masolino and
Stamina, in the right lateral chapels of Sant’ Agostino, following the docu-
ments which recorded the commission of these paintings. All the work of
restoration in both churches had been financed by considerable expenditures
on the part of an Empoli lawyer, Del Vivo, who for years had served as honor-
ary inspector of monuments for his native town. Now everything that had been
brought to light through such sacrifice and labor was either endangered or
already smashed.

Our melancholy visit produced for the moment only the plans for the clear-
ance of the rubble. Del Vivo, notwithstanding the destruction by the Germans
of his own house and everything in it, was willing to begin all over again and
follow the work through. He found the laborers, and in a few days the work
began. Of the smashed and torn pictures, not enough was found to be worth
preserving. But the pieces of the terra cotta relief were discovered in good
enough condition to permit reconstruction, for which they were taken back to
Florence. And ultimately Procacci was able to announce to the Superin tendency
that the great baptismal font had suffered only negligible damage from the
tons of rubble precipitated upon it.

In Sant’ Agostino the chief problem was to keep roof tiles over the frescoes
so recently discovered. Our workmen made a new roof of undamaged tiles
gathered from all over the church, left it at night and returned in the morning
to find that the tiles had disappeared. The aisles were stripped three times,
until finally the mayor of Empoli provided a guard to prevent further depreda-
tions. The rubble clearance in the Collegiata was a colossal undertaking, and
it was February before it could be considered complete. But Sant’ Agostino
had been less gravely damaged, and in January began the task of erecting walls
to close off the two-thirds of the church which was still more or less intact,
and which contained the precious early Quattrocento frescoes and the fine
Baroque chapel frescoed by Volterrano. In March reconstruction began on the
transept of the Collegiata, the destroyed portion of the nave, and the rooms
of the museum and the baptistery. New roof beams had to be placed over the
nave, and in early summer these were completed. By the autumn of 1945 both
churches were ready for the public again, even the Baroque ceiling of the
Collegiata restored, although only the interest of future years will provide, as
in Badia a Settimo and so many other mutilated churches throughout Italy,
the missing campanili.

During the early days of the liberation of Florence one of the ,most constant
worries in the minds of art lovers in America. England, and Italy concerned
not a place but a person. Whatever future scholarship may discover, whatever

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shifts in evaluation may be made by the taste of changing epochs, the prin-
ciples laid down by Bernard Berenson will always underlie our knowledge
of the painting of the Trecento, the Quattrocento, and a good part of the Cinque-
cento. And our methods for the investigation of problems of attribution will
always to a great extent be his. At “I Tatti,” close to Settignano, the cypresses,
the gardens, and the rooms lined with works of the period which Berenson
helped to discover were the setting for a cultural life that gathered artists, writ-
ers, scholars, musicians, philosophers, political figures of every nation to enjoy
the conversation of this brilliant personality. By nationality, origin, and un-
concealed political conviction Berenson was a shining target for Fascist hatred.
During the years before the war his international importance was such that
Fascism was able to do little to harm him or to hinder the life at “I Tatti.”
But the new and more virulent form of Fascism which had broken out under
the German occupation and after September 8, 1943, was another story. Danger
to Berenson at the hands of the SS or of Mussolini’s terror gangs was bitterly
real. Yet no one in Rome or in Florence seemed to know what had become
of him.

“I Tatti” was still within the German lines when, on August 14, in front of
the Excelsior Hotel Captain Pennoyer excitedly presented to me Prof. Giovanni
Colacicchi, director of the Accademia di Belle Arti, who had come to the Ex-
celsior expressly to locate some Allied officer who would know what the name
of Berenson meant. By good fortune he found Pennoyer. Professor Colacicchi
revealed that Berenson had been in hiding near Florence for nearly a year,
ever since the eighth of September. He had been offered asylum in a villa
called “Le Fontanelle,” near the hospital at Careggi. The house enjoyed diplo-
matic protection as the home of His Excellency Marquis Filippo Serlupi-Cres-
cenzi. Minister Plenipotentiary and Ambassador Extraordinary of the Republic
of San Marino to the Holy See. Here, provided with false identification papers,
Berenson lived in retirement surrounded by the Serlupi family, his generous
and kind friends, who risked their lives for his protection. But although the
best of his collection was at “Le Fontanelle,” thirty pictures had been taken
to a house in Borgo San Jacopo in Florence, where they were later caught in
the crash of one whole side of the mined building.

“Le Fontanelle” was still inside the German lines (indeed the first German
outposts were hardly more than half a mile from where we were talking that
moment), but at least we were able to visit Borgo San Jacopo. We made our
way over the rubble to the house, number 18, wary of possible mines. In the
general devastation it was impossible to tell in what portion of the house the
pictures had been, so all hope of excavating had to be renounced until we
could get more accurate information. But I arranged at once for an Italian
police guard to be put on the building to keep looters out. A fortnight later

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Signor Luigi Albrighi and Berenson’s restorer, Prof. Giannino Marchig, came
to my office to request permission to proceed with the excavation, assuming all
responsibility for the pictures, and they began work at once.

Pennoyer had informed Allied Intelligence officers of the importance of
locating Berenson as soon as possible, but we did not yet know whether he was
dead or alive. Not till September 2 did Albrighi and Marchig come to tell me
that, according to their information, the area around Careggi had been liber-
ated and that the way was open to “Le Fontanelle.” Although efforts to obtain
information from military units encountered on the way failed as usual to
produce anything precise, we continued on a fairly exciting trip through the
Florentine suburbs and the lanes bordering the great Careggi hospital, arriving
at the villa to find it perforated by shells. We were informed by Serlupi-Cres-
cenzi that Berenson was alive and well, and in a few minutes I was taken to
him. He was resting on a chaise longue in an upper room, terribly pale
and suffering somewhat from shock, but otherwise perfectly safe.

It had been a difficult experience for a man of seventy-nine. The villa had
been hit by more than thirty small-caliber shells during a bombardment that
lasted seven days and nights. Berenson and the Serlupi family had taken refuge
in two small rooms at the back of the villa, safer than any of the others because
hollowed out of the side of the rock. Shells had passed through the villa quite
near this shelter, and at one time Berenson had narrowly escaped being struck
by a shell when he left the room for a few minutes. Shells had burst in the living
room, which contained the precious paintings, but only one or two small frag-
ments were embedded in the masses of protective cushions, blankets, and up-
holstery, and the surfaces of the pictures themselves were unscratched. The
fighting in the area had ceased only the morning before, and shortly afterward
Major Samson, the amg displaced persons officer, had arrived, depriving me of
the honor of being the first Allied soldier to reach Berenson.

Before long “I Tatti” was liberated, the damage repaired, the pictures brought
back to their places, the great library to its shelves from the refuges where it
had been concealed in Florence, and Berenson himself returned to change his
exiled retirement for a triumphant life of converse with innumerable Italian
friends and Allied visitors. My own weekly visits to “I Tatti" were the hap-
piest hours spent in all that year of ceaseless work. Eventually even the shat-
tered pictures from Borgo San Jacopo began to return. Through the skill of
Giannino Marchig most of them had been saved. Only nine of the thirty small
paintings were damaged beyond redemption, even by Marchig. But “I Tatti,”
with its illustrious occupant and priceless treasure of books and paintings, was
once more safe. After all these years our Off Limits sign still hangs on the
gate below the cypresses.

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O UR responsibility for the Florentine deposits by no means ceased with
the discovery and guarding of Montegufoni and its neighboring vil-
las. Ten more deposits formed by the Superintendency were visited
in the month of September alone, and our discoveries more than doubled the
imposing list of works of art stolen by the Germans. Santomato, Striano, Incisa,
and Scarperia had all been evacuated and their contents returned to Florence
before the liberation. The stained glass of the Duomo was all safe in the villa
of Comm. De Marinis at Montalto, near Maiano. A very extensive deposit of
the important works from the Pitti and the UfEzi was stored at Poggio Im-
periale, in the southern outskirts of Florence. But a considerable section of the
artistic treasure of the city was still to be accounted for.

After what we had seen at Montagnana and Oliveto, the fate of these works
of art was a matter for grave concern. Nor was our worry alleviated by Poggi’s
account of an ominous visit to his office in the last days of the German occupa-
tion. A certain Colonel Baumann of the German SS, accompanied by another
officer and an interpreter, presented himself at the Superintendency on the
morning of July 26, 1944.

“Colonel Baumann,” reads Poggi’s report, “claimed to have an order from
Himmler, in accordance with agreements between Hitler and Mussolini, to
transport to northern Italy the most precious works of art of the city of Flor-
ence, in order to save them from the rapine of the American troops. I replied
that the orders of my Government, also in accordance with recent agreements
concluded with Minister Pavolini, who had been in Florence, were to leave
the works in the city, and that in any case there were in Florence no movable
and easily transportable works of art, these being all in distant deposits. There
were only works of secondary importance, unpacked, and therefore not in
condition to withstand a long journey if not first boxed. There were also works
of sculpture of the greatest importance, but too large to carry away.

“Colonel Baumann replied that he had all the means necessary for loading
and transporting, and precise orders to provide for the transport at all cost. I
asked him to go with me and talk to Consul Wolf. We went, and the Consul
confirmed what had been said. Colonel Baumann declared sharply that he
would have to ask for further instructions. Immediately afterward I accom-
panied him and his companions to see the deposits where the large works of
art were — the courtyard of the Pitti, the shelter under the Loggia dei Lanzi,
the armor hall in the Bargello. He was persuaded that it was not possible to
transport such works, given the brief time available.

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“On the morning of the following day, July 27, he returned, insisting on the
transport of other objects in conformity with the orders he had received. I
repeated my arguments, and I added that according to recent agreements be-
tween Minister Pavolini, the Podesta of Florence, and the Cardinal Archbishop,
who had assumed protection of the works of art in the city in the name of
the Vatican, I would be able to consign nothing without the authority of the
Cardinal. Colonel Baumann, after many objections and even threats, appeared
finally to give in to my arguments. He asked me if there were any works of
art of private property to place in safety; I answered that I believed that those
few important ones which still remained in private possession had been taken
out of Florence at the beginning of the war, to protect them against air raids.
The Colonel left, telling me that he would return at eleven to go with me to
Consul Wolf and inform me of his decision. He returned instead at twelve
to tell me that he had given up his conversation with Wolf, and to take leave.”

The superintendent’s matter-of-fact report omits to state that at the time he
was showing Colonel Baumann enormous works of sculpture, such as the
baptistery doors and Cellini’s Perseus, which could not possibly be moved with
the means and in the time available, there were in Florence all the most im-
portant pictures from Arezzo, including the polyptych by Pietro Lorenzetti
from the Pieve, the best things from Empoli, including the Masolino Piela and
the Si. Sebastian by Rossellino, the Fra Angelico Annunciation from Monte-
carlo, the Piero Della Francesca Madonna della Misericordia from Borgo Sanse-
polcro, the Ambrogio Lorenzetti Madonna from Vico I’Abbate, as well as many
other pictures of great importance, and the entire contents of the Gabinetto dei
Disegni of the Uffizi, just back from outlying deposits, and still in their boxes.
This the Colonel was never permitted to discover.

Against such a background the reader may well imagine our feelings on
receiving on August 31 the following message, dated August 27, from acc
headquarters in Rome; “Swiss Government informed by German Legation at
Berne that German authorities have stored in \illa reale poggio a caiano five
kilometers northwest of Signa valuable artistic collections and archives con-
cerning Tuscan Renaissance works. Stated by German Government that there
are in neighborhood villa re.vle no repeat no German troops and villa reale
itself not used for military purposes. German Government desires to inform
British and American Governments of its desire to avoid bombardment or
destruction villa reale. Grateful you inform Army amg of contents of this
message.” We informed them, if they needed any such information, for on
the twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth the German radio had been
bombarding us with similar announcements. We were not long in doubt of
the reasons for this extraordinary campaign. Only a few days later, on Septem-

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ber 5, the push across the Arno made it possible to reach Poggio a Caiano.
Professor Rossi, who was responsible for all the deposits of the Florence Super-
intendency, set off with me in the early morning for Poggio. On arrival at a
point where the roof of the Villa Medici could be distinctly seen over the tree
tops of the surrounding park, we found that the bridge over the canal had
been blown. We therefore left the jeep with the proprietor of a neighboring
house, and Rossi, Franco, and I waded the canal, climbed the other bank,
and found ourselves greeted as liberators by a village which had never before
seen an AlUed officer. The Germans had left two or three days before, and
the Allied advances had skirted the town.

At the viUa we had a reception of a very different sort. The custodian, Giu-
seppe de Luca, met us under the arches of the portico, with the announcement
that, despite all his efforts and the earnest protest of the local clergy, who
pointed out that the villa and everything in it was under the protection of
the Vatican, the Germans had made off with fifty-eight cases of sculpture,
including the Satnl George of Donatello, during the days when they were
broadcasting appeals to the Allies not to bombard the villa!

Donatello’s Saint George! What loss could Florence have felt more keenly.?
The ideal hero, the saintly warrior, represented for the Florentines the very
incarnation of the martial vigor of their lost republic. And this was only the
beginning of the list of sculptural masterpieces that the Germans removed
under cover of their perfidious broadcast. Three other works by Donatello
were on the list; the Marzocco, the marble David from the Bargello, and the
Annunciation relief from Santa Croce. Michelangelo’s Bacchus was gone. So
were two fine Madonna reliefs by Michelozzo, a Madonna and the Resurrection
by Verrocchio, and a considerable group of other works of Renaissance sculp-
ture. So was a long series of ancient statues from the Uffizi, including one of
the Dying Giants of the school of Pergamon and the Medici Venus.

Unarmed and powerless to prevent the rape of these treasures, De Luca had
successfully insisted that the Germans sign a document assuming responsibility
for the theft, and admitting that General Kesselring’s order of protection and
the Cardinal’s letter placing the villa and its contents under the aegis of the
Holy See had been called to their attention. At the end of the first inventory
of the objects, taken on August 23, are these words in German script:

Plenipotentiar)' General of the German Armed Forces in
Italy, Chief of Military Government, Department of Art
Protection,

by order. Prof. Reidemeister
Military Government Adviser.’’

^ “Bevollmachtigter General der deutschen Wehrmacht in Itaiien, Chef der Militar-
vervvaltung Abtg. Kunstschutz i. Prof. Reidemeister M. v. Rat.”

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The second inventory, dated August 26, is signed by a Lieutenant Wawrowetz.
The general referred to is of course General Wolff, the head of the SS in Italy,
the “Chief” is Langsdorff, and Reidemeister was Langsdorff’s principal assist-
ant, of whom we shall hear much.

None of the works of art from Prato — the entire contents of the Museo
Civico — had been touched, and the precious reliefs by Nicola and Giovanni
Pisano from the Pisa pulpits were still walled up. But it was some time before
any of us regained our composure. Our one gratification was that the many
shells that had struck the villa had caused no damage to the architectural de-
tails nor to the wonderful frescoed hall. After giving De Luca an Off Limits
sign for the villa, we returned to Florence. That night I sent to Major DeWald
in Rome a telegram I could scarcely believe myself.

Only ten days later came an agitated message from De Luca; the villa had
been requisitioned in spite of the Off Limits sign. I went at once to investigate,
and found that the occupying unit was the 54th South African Field Dressing
Station. Major Morton, the commanding officer, had received permission to
use the villa through a misunderstanding. The Major told me that in the coun-
try around Poggio there was no other building large enough to contain all the
activities of his hospital, which took casualties as they came from the battlefield
and gave them their first surgical treatment. There could of course be no
question but that the dressing station be permitted to use the building. The
Major took me on a tour of the hospital. The smaller rooms were in use as
bandaging rooms, operating rooms, and medical storage rooms, and the great
hall was the ward. Under the coffered barrel vault the lyrical Vertumnus and
Pomona of Pontormo looked down on fifty beds filled with wounded South
African soldiers. I have sometimes wished I had taken a picture of the great
hall as it was then, so harrowing was the contrast between the suffering of
tlie soldiers and the splendor of the Renaissance. Yet at the time the thought
of making a photograph never occurred to me; it would have seemed almost
blasphemous.

Major Morton's concern for the safety of the villa and its contents under
such circumstances was touching in the extreme. The strictest orders were
given to all his men. and these orders were meticulously complied with. Be-
fore he left. Major Morton wrote to thank me for the use of the villa. During
the period in which his unit was there, he said, 199 severe battle casualties
were treated — before the frescoes of Pontormo, Andrea Del Sarto, and Ales-
sandro Allori.

The most important deposits of the Superintendency still to be visited lav
in the Casentino, that green valley in the Apennines where the Arno starts
southward on its first triumphant rush. Here, in the Palazzo Pretorio at Poppi

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and the monastery of Camaldoli were all the rest of the great treasures of the
Pitti and the Uffizi, more than half of the total. Unfortunately, during these
days the fighting had left the Casentino in a sort of backwater. The valley
and its surrounding mountain masses (Pratomagno, Alpe di Catenaia, Alpe
di Serra) suffered a protracted occupation by SS and German paratrooper
units, who carried on for two months a campaign of plunder, terror, and mur-
derous reprisals against local populations, actually thirty miles sotith of the
Allied advances.

On September 7 in Arezzo I made my first attempt to get to Poppi, but the
Casentino was still occupied by Germans. On September 18 I tried again from
Florence, thinking to cut the journey short by taking the road over the Con-
suma, the pass that descends into the Casentino from the Pratomagno, due east
of Florence. We arrived at the village of Consuma, at thirty-two hundred feet,
in the middle of a cold fog. At the other side of the village was a laconic sign
across the road : this is the front. In the village we learned that the area was
only lightly held by an Italian paratrooper unit in British uniforms and under
British command, and that the Germans marauded at will through the ridges
and forests of the Pratomagno. About four miles up the road German patrols
had a most convenient crossing. While we might conceivably pass that point,
there was small certainty. A week later, September 25, we tried it again. This
time the road was open, yet so much of it was demolished by the Germans that
we were often forced into open fields for considerable distances, over rocky
ledges and along streambeds where only light tanks had been before us.

Reports by the peasants that the Germans had carried off everything from
Poppi increased our pessimism. Taking a by-pass around the gutted village of
Borgo alia Collina, blown up by the Germans, we could already distinguish
under the gloomy cloud masses and through intermittent rainstorms the tower
of the castle of Poppi, from which in the Middle Ages the Guidi family domi-
nated the Casentino. We had to ford the howling Arno twice before we finally
reached the hill of Poppi itself and, since the mediaeval town gate, with all its
surrounding houses, had been blown up by the Germans, we entered the town
by a rear gate, difficult of access across narrow lanes. The beautiful arcaded
streets were intact and, save for a few shell holes, so was the castle. Examination
of the deposit within showed that most of the pictures were still there, all in
boxes and cases carefully cleared together. Only one truckload was missing,
between twenty-five and thirty cases. With a sense of relief I made out by
candlelight such labels as Botticelli, Birth of Venus \ Leonardo da Vinci,
Adoration of the Magi\ Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Angels — at
least the major part of the deposit was safe.

It was not until I returned to Poppi on September 27 with Rossi and the

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inventories that we found what it was the Germans had loaded on that one
truck. One hundred ninety-six paintings were missing. This was a raid sur-
passed in scale only by the gigantic theft from Montagnana. Three Raphaels
were gone, the early Self Portrait, the portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena, and the
marvellous Donna Velata. Two Madonnas by Botticelli, Titian’s Concert, three
paintings by Andrea Del Sarto, Diirer’s Calvary, a Madonna and Child by Cor-
reggio, the late Rembrandt Portrait of an Old Man, the Rubens Holy Family,
Watteau’s Flute Player, all were missing. What was particularly interesting was
the number of German, Flemish, and Dutch pictures that had been taken.
Five Diirers, seven Cranachs, one Breughel, one Holbein, four Memlings, and
works by Ruysdael, Steen, }oos Van Cleve, Terborch, Teniers, and many other
northern painters were on the list, seeming to show a particular interest on the
part of the Germans in getting as many German or Germanic pictures as pos-
sible.

According to a series of sworn statements from various citizens of the town
of Poppi, the raid took place under the most dramatic circumstances, with
every accompaniment of treachery and violence. About August i 8 a German
officer visited the acting mayor of the Commune of Poppi under the pretext
of searching for hidden arms. He suggested that the deposit, which he in-
spected, could be better guarded by walling up the doors. The following day,
work was started. On August 22, about eight o’clock in the evening, a German
captain, accompanied by a second lieutenant and a noncommissioned officer,
arrived at the castle and in a most peremptory manner demanded the keys.
They began their search with the upper floors, breaking down those doors for
which keys were not immediately forthcoming.

On the arrival of an interpreter, the Germans charged that the village was
a nest of spies and rebels, and demanded to see whether the castle contained
arms. But the moment they were inside the deposit they revealed their true
intentions. Drawing their revolvers, they forced the unfortunate town police-
men who had been brought along by the village officials to carry one of
the boxes of pictures outside. It then appeared that while the town officials
had been going through the castle with the Germans, a truck had arrived in
front of the castle, taking side streets so as not to alarm the population. There-
upon the three Germans, firing their revolvers to scare away all passers-by,
loaded the box into their truck, and drove off, after informing the town authori-
ties that they would be back in a short time, and that until their return no one
was to approach the castle.

Around nine o’clock trumpets were sounded by German soldiers in the
streets, and the town was informed that mines were about to be set off irnder
the town gate, that the nearby houses were to be evacuated at once, and that

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the population was to remain in the cellars until further notice. Then began
for the unarmed inhabitants an interminable night of waiting in darkness. Ap-
parently it was midnight when the Germans returned with an unknown num-
ber of soldiers and a truck and began their work of selection and carrying off.
At six o’clock on the morning of the twenty-third, according to the testimony
of the priest, the truck left. At nine the acting mayor resolved to go to the
castle, although the mines had not yet exploded and there might still be Ger-
mans about. The courtyard was full of the smashed bricks from the new walls,
doors had been forced, broken and empty boxes littered the interior.

The oflScials therefore had the outer gate to the castle locked to prevent the en-
trance of unauthorized persons. At eleven-thirty two German second lieutenants
arrived; the interpreter and the town officials were recalled, and as the party
went up to the castle the German officers explained that the entire operation
was official and had been ordered by the High Command, that it had been
executed only in order to save the works of art from the damage of war and
especially from theft by Anglo-American troops, that the German authorities
were extremely sorry they had not been able to remove all of the works of art,
and that the remainder would have to be protected by the population. With
this the two lieutenants ordered that the courtyard be cleaned up at once,
and for about two hours supervised a hasty job which removed only the most
obvious signs of violence. At one-thirty they left, and at two the mines ex-
ploded, blowing up the town gate and the only secure road that united the
village to the outside world.

We found many of the smashed cases, some empty, some hastily closed up
after it was discovered that they contained not pictures but sections of dis-
mantled Della Robbia reliefs. There was one comical detail, still unexplained.
An erroneous report appeared in the Florentine newspapers that the Germans
had taken from Montagnana not the Adam and Eve of Cranach but the rather
dissimilar portraits by Cranach of Martin Luther and his wife! Yet when we
arrived in Poppi, where these portraits were supposed to be, we found that this
time they really were missing.

The story of the rest of the Casentino deposits is very brief indeed. At Camal-
doh, the most important one, were stored such things as Botticelli’s Adoration
of the Magi, the Titian Venus of Urbino, Botticelli’s fuditk, Leonardo’s An-
nunciation, a Mantegna Madonna, the portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro
and his wife by Piero Della Francesca. On the twenty-seventh we made a de-
termined attempt to reach Camaldoli in a blinding rainstorm that converted
the forest-hung mountain road into a waterfall, but were turned back by blown
roads. Only by accident did we meet the Father Chamberlain of Camaldoli
on the road near Poppi. He reported at once that the Germans had not entered

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the monastery and nothing had been touched, nor had the buildings suffered
the slightest war damage.

Not so fortunate was the deposit of works of sculpture and minor arts from
the Bargello, the Bigallo, the Carrand collection, and several Florentine
churches that had been deposited in the Villa Bocci at Soci, near Bibbiena. A
German hospital had occupied the villa, and the Germans had carried off
everything, some sixty-nine cases. There was nothing of such universal impor-
tance as the works missing from Poppi, Poggio a Caiano, and Montagnana,
but there were many fine things, including large reliefs by Luca and Andrea
della Robbia.

After posting the Gastello Guidi at Poppi Off Limits, we returned to Florence,
satisfied about the safety of what remained in the deposit. The castle itself was
a secure place, easily locked. There were very few Allied troops in the area,
so there would be no problem of requisition and no guards would be necessary.
But we could not help wondering at the selection of works made by the
Germans. They took, along with the masterpieces, so many pictures of very
secondary importance and left behind them not only the things I have men-
tioned earlier but the Doni Madonna by Michelangelo and the Adoration of
the Magi by Mantegna.

Another important group of deposits lay in the Mugello, the valley of the
Sieve some twenty miles from Florence, the home of both Giotto and Fra
Angelico. The first of these deposits was housed in the Villa Medici at Cafag-
giolo, but no longer contained much of artistic importance. The Superin-
tendency had already brought back during the preceding winter the entire
collection of drawings from the Uffizi, leaving only the largest cartoon draw-
ings, and had also removed the ninety-five cases of silversmith work which
formed the Museo degli Argenti of the Pitti Palace. In addition to the cartoons,
much important botanical material belonging to the University of Florence
was still in the building. Although part of the structure was occupied by troops,
the deposits were safe, and Off Limits signs had been posted and respected.

The next deposit was a large, much modernized castle at Barberino, still
containing forty-eight cartoons from the UfiSzi, the drawings, as at Cafaggiolo,
having already been brought back. This villa was occupied by the 34th Division
Artillery, under the command of Brigadier General Tate. No one apparently
knew anything about a collection of works of art, and the room where they had
been was in use as the central control post for the division artillery. I was,
however, given permission to search the building, and finally, in a dark base-
ment amid water and every kind of filth I discovered the cartoons. Most of the
glass and many of the frames were broken. Many of the frames were empty
and piled loosely in the dark cellar. At the bottom of the stairs was a con-

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siderable section of the palaeographic library of the University of Florence,
trodden into unrecognizable muck by the hobnailed boots of the Germans who
had previously occupied the villa.

The American ofhcers, including the chaplain, all assured me that the main
deposit room had been absolutely empty when they arrived, that they had found
the cartoons in this condition, had not recognized their importance, and had
not disturbed them further. General Tate soon sent for me, and when I ex-
plained to him the value of the collection he promised to issue protective orders
and give me every assistance in removing what remained to Florence. This
cooperation was the more remarkable as I had to use civilian workmen in
the middle of a highly operational headquarters, and the security problem in-
volved would worry any commander. Two days later I returned with a truck
provided by Fifth Army and workmen from the Superintendency, screened
by the British Field Security Service, and we began to evacuate the cartoons,
superintended by the ever-present Rossi. It was a curious spectacle, for the
General insisted on watching, and demanded a short lecture on every piece
that left the castle. This I had to deliver to the thunderous accompaniment
of the General’s artillery and the whistle and crash of German shells so near
that more than once the workmen ran for cover.

Rossi’s check of the inventory disclosed the melancholy tidings that twenty-
five of the cartoons were missing, mostly torn from their frames. The conditions
under which we found the remainder offered little hope that the missing works
had been taken by anyone who understood their value or knew how to care
for them. It was not for many months that it was discovered, when the ma-
terial belonging to the University of Florence was removed, that nineteen of
the cartoons were merely mislaid among the books and papers. The losses
were therefore reduced to six, Callot’s Temptation of St. Anthony., the Tin-
toretto Christ Borne by Angels, a Madonna by Lorenzo di Credi, and cartoons
by the Carracci and Furini and after Raphael.

On the same day as my first visit to Barberino, September 20, I continued
on through the Mugello to Dicomano, a small village at the foot of the Gothic
Line, where the Superintendency had deposited a number of works of sculp-
ture from the Uffizi, mostly classical, in a small, early nineteenth centurv
church, the Oratory of Sant’ Onofrio. Dicomano was a scene of fantastic
ruin. In order to block the road which led to the first fortifications of the Gothic
Line, the Germans had blown up nearly half the town, and British bulldozers
were just plowing their way through the rubble, in the midst of which stood
the little church, its doors wide open. There was a cleared area in the front of
the nave, as if the cases next to the door had been removed, and two or three
crates stood ready for loading. A complete check, made on my return on Sep-

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tember 23 with Rossi, disclosed that the Germans had taken twenty-six cases
of sculpture, including the Niobe with her Youngest Daughter and the Uffizi
version of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos.

According to the accounts of the few civilians who had returned to the
ruined town, a German captain, provided with a list of deposits, arrived to
inspect the Oratory of Sant’ Onofrio only a few days before the destruction of
the village. Then came the forced evacuation of all the civilians in the town
and the mines did their deadly work. When the custodian returned to the town,
after the departure of the Germans, he found the doors of the chapel forced
and a considerable part of the contents gone, although his inventories had been
destroyed in the general catastrophe, and he could not verify just what or
even how many objects had been taken. When Rossi had completed the check-
ing, a task made doubly difficult by the size of the cases and the lack of elec-
tricity, we gave orders to the mayor to board up the door, and our job here
was for the time being at an end.

None of the other deposits was of such importance, and from none was
anything missing. In one deposit of works from the churches of Prato, how-
ever, the misguided zeal of the Partisans had resulted in considerable damage
to the contents. By early October it was possible to estimate how much of the
artistic heritage of Tuscany had been carried off and how much still remained.
The deposits where the works from the museums and churches of Siena,
Arezzo, Grosseto, Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, and Livorno had been sheltered were
intact. Only Florence, the most important of all, had suffered robbery, and
that on a scale to dwarf the depredations of Napoleon. A grand total of 529
paintings, 162 works of sculpture and minor arts, 6 large cartoon drawings,
and 38 pieces of mediaeval and Renaissance textiles had been taken from the
public collections of Florence, all in all 735 objects. Even in a city as rich in
works of art as Florence, this represented a staggering proportion. Although
many of the stolen works, perhaps more than fifty per cent, were things of
comparatively minor importance, the rest were all works of the very highest
quality and fame. It is fair to estimate that about one-fourth of the most im-
portant objects from the museums of Florence disappeared in German hands
between July 2 and August 23, 1944.

Most of the thefts bore the mark of official action. None took place with
the agreement of any Italian authority. Some were accompanied by violence,
all by treacher}’. These raids occurred in direct violation of promises made by
the Germans that the works should remain in Florence and in the deposits,
and at a time when the Germans were protesting their inability to spare any
transportation to bring the contents of the deposits back to Florence. Only the
fearless conduct of Superintendent Poggi prevented the departure of even more

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treasures, then all present in Florence. Nor was this all. In spite of Poggi, the
Germans had laid their hands on portions of three private collections, taking
pictures belonging to the late French banker, M. Finaly, the noted American
art historian. Mason Perkins, and the art dealer and collector. Count Contini-
Bonacossi. They made determined attempts to get Berenson’s pictures as well,
but never discovered their location. In all cases two reasons, equally transparent,
were adduced: the pictures must be protected against damage by military ac-
tion, and they must be safeguarded against the plundering troops of the Allies.
(The only deposit whose contents were in fact damaged by the war was Pop-
piano, and that by a German shell.)

I wish it could be said that no Allied soldier had ever taken a work of art,
but the occasional individual examples of looting and damage by Allied troops
involved works of little consequence, and the scrupulous sense of responsibility
for works of art exercised at all levels of AlUed command was in sharp con-
trast to the German propaganda concerning us. Constant amusement was
afforded the officers of the Subcommission by the daily German and Fascist Re-
publican broadcasts, referring to us as the “American art-Jews” who were pil-
laging Italy. According to these stories the captured works of art were spread
out for the Allied generals to take their pick, and the remainder went to Amer-
ica and Britain as fast as the ships could carry them. Every month a convoy was
assembled in Salerno Bay for this purpose. We had dismantled the cathedral
of Monreale stone by stone, and sent that along too. A huge auction had taken
place in New York, in which all the finest things from Sicily were offered for
sale to the public; the Germans even had a copy of the sale catalogue. When
in a ceremony at the National Gallery in Washington the late President Roose-
velt expressed the gratitude of the nation for the gift by Mr. Samuel Henry
Kress of his splendid collection of Italian paintings, the radio screamed that the
“Jew” Kress' was giving to the Americans all the treasures of Italy which had
been stolen by Negro troops. But the humor of the situation wore a bit thin for
those of us who were then working in the midst of the rubble to which the
Germans had reduced the center of Florence (after blaming it on us), or strug-
gling to reach deposits the Germans had just emptied.

Why did they do it.? At the time they made the haul from Florence the
Germans had already lost all of western Europe and most of the east as well.
The end of the war — when they would be forced to disgorge — was only a mat-
ter of months. They had lost thousands upon thousands of vehicles in the flight
from Rome, and movements of works of art on such a scale must have been

' Mr. Kress is of Gentile (German!) origin, and his collection was assembled before the
war began. Since the war his gifts for the restoration of Italian monuments have totaled
|ioo,ooo.

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an additional drain on their transportation facilities. It is one of the strangest
aspects of German mentality that up imtil the end, and even after the end, they
continued to behave as if they were going to win. Rapine, demolition, plunder,
and mass murder went on in the Italian villages imtil the very arrival of the
Allies. The bridges of Verona were blown up exactly a week before the Germans
in Italy had to surrender.

To ask all this gave us small comfort. All we knew was that the works of
art, ostensibly to save them from a few shells that might have hit the roofs
above them, were exposed to a far greater danger. A third of them had no
cases or boxes of any kind, and all of them were being moved over mountain
roads which the Allies were shelling and strafing day and night. The charred
remnants of German trucks that lined the road from Rome for a hundred
miles brought visions of what a fighter plane might do to a convoy of works
of art. And even if these works of art did arrive safely in North Italy or Ger-
many or wherever, who was to assure us that in a last holocaust of nihilistic
fury the Germans would not blow them up or set fire to them?^

For the Florentines and for us, September added only deeper gloom to the
despair of August. All we could do was to protect what was left, bringing the
works of art in the least secure deposits back to Florence as soon as possible,
profiting by the presence of Fifth Army Headquarters, whose truck companies
were within easy reach. I received unusual cooperation from Fifth Army Freight
Section, considering that their main job was to carry supplies to the troops of
a great army engaged in an extremely diflEcult offensive. With the trucks ob-
tained from Fifth Army I was able to move supplies in Florence, especially
the enormous beams for Torre degli Amidei, but particularly to evacuate com-
pletely Villa Guicciardini at Poppiano and Villa Bossi-Pucci at Montagnana.

Captain Pennoyer, Rossi, and I took the first convoy of four trucks to Mon-
tagnana and Poppiano on September i6. One truck was left here, while the
others went on to Poppiano. With rollers and ropes the only means at the dis-
posal of the Superintendency, the work of moving the huge Mannerist altar-
pieces, to say nothing of the slate panels from the Studiolo of Francesco I, was
heavy indeed. The pushing, groaning, hauling, and easing, interspersed with
rich Tuscan blasphemy, took the whole day. In the early evening we rejoined
the fourth truck at Montagnana and started back to Florence. There were not
enough materials for boxes or crates, so we had to m.ove the pictures as thev
were, but the weather was perfect and we did not have to worry about open
trucks. The pictures were packed with cushions of excelsior on the frames,

® In fact, this nearly occurred in .\ltaussee in Austria, where a Genman order to blow up
a deposit of over six thousand stolen pictures, including the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van
Eyck, was foiled by the .\ustrian miners.

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blankets, quilts, and tarpaulins, and so well roped to the trucks that nothing
could move. The workmen had to travel with us, carefully deployed so that
each truck carried several workmen who could catch at overhanging boughs
or dangling wires.

I had taken great care to brief the drivers on the value of the load they were
carrying, and issued instructions that no truck was to exceed ten miles per
hour. At this crawl the short journey back to Florence took over two hours.
The four trucks contained in addition to the Pontormo Deposition from Santa
Felicita and Visitation from Carmignano, the Vecchietta Madonna Enthroned,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Presentation in the T emple, the Rosso Depositions from
Volterra and from Sansepolcro, a long series of Mannerist altarpieces by Vasari,
Salviati, Pomarancio, Cigoli, Santi di Tito, Passignano, and others, the entire
Studiolo of Francesco I, and three more of the detached frescoes by Paolo
Uccello from the Chiostro Verde. At one time we passed through an olive
orchard where was encamped the headquarters of iv Corps, occasioning in-
credulous stares and salty comments on the part of the GI’s as the towering
altarpieces moved slowly down the road. Some of the soldiers, trying to hitch
their free ride to town, had to be dislodged from the gilded frames.

In this manner we arrived in Florence in the gathering dusk. Passing through
the crowds along the Via Romana the caravan crawled up to the Palazzo Pitti.
Thus, less than three weeks after the Germans finished their raid on the Floren-
tine art treasures, the Allies had begun their job of restitution. I intended to
bring back all the works from the deposits as long as I could get trucks for the
purpose. One thing stopped me. I was informed by Colonel Michie, now c.\o
of Florence, that the Germans had a v-weapon site in northern Italy, pointing
in the vicinity of Florence. Not until after hostilities were at an end could we
risk returning any more works of art to Florence.

( 79 }

CHAPTER VII

SALVAGE IN PISA AND AREZZO

O UR worst days in Florence had come in August. In September Captain
Keller, who had been working in Volterra and Livorno, fell heir to a
task of colossal proportions, the first salvage work in Pisa. The terrible
bombardments that had reduced to ruins so many of the buildings on the south
bank of the river had been followed by three fighter-bomber attacks on the
bridges, carving enormous holes in the center of the city. For forty days static
warfare had been carried on within the town, with barbed wire, small ar ms ,
machine guns, and grenades. Artillery dueled from side to side of the Arno.
On September 2 Captain Keller arrived to find Pisa a scene of utter devastation,
shattered, piled with rubble, wreckage, and barbed wire, and sown thick with
mines and booby traps. Half the streets could not be explored at all. Captain
Keller entered buildings at the risk of his life, identifying as many as four or
five booby traps in one room. Most of the population had fled. On every side
lay ruin and desolation. The famous Lungarni of Pisa, those two majestic
crescents of palaces, were torn and shattered, littered with broken stone and
glass. And the German shelling still continued.

Of all the artistic tragedies of Pisa, however, the greatest was the loss of the
Campo Santo. When Keller, unaware of what had happened, arrived in the
Piazza del Duomo, he found that the entire roof of the Campo Santo, two
tracts of 415 feet and two of 171, had been destroyed by fire (Fig. 32). The
delicate tracery of the Gothic marble arcades enclosed little but ruin. The
blazing beams had fallen, crushing the Gothic tombs and Roman sarcophagi
throughout the interior of the building. The lead, which had covered half the
roof, melted in the heat of the flames and ran down the frescoed walls, covering
the marble pavement and its mediaeval tomb slabs. When it cooled, there was a
layer of lead half an inch thick over the entire area, encrusting the broken
tombs and sarcophagi. The vast series of frescoes that lined all the walls, in-
cluding the celebrated Triumph of Death series and the cycle by Benozzo Goz-
zoli, had been literally cooked by the violent heat. Pitiful rags of frescoed plaster
peeled and sagged from the walls. Thirty-eight days of exposure to the intense
sun of the Pisa plain had done much to aggravate the damage caused by the
fire, and over large tracts the plaster was reduced to a sort of chalky dust.

The only clear written account of this destruction, which must rank im-
mediately after the loss of the Mantegna frescoes in Padua as the most severe
artistic disaster of the war in Italy, is the moving story written by Bruno Far-

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PISA AND AREZZO

nesi, the modest technical assistant of the Opera del Duomo, who tried so val-
iantly to extinguish the flames. I quote it here in its entirety:

“chronicle of the destruction by fire, caused by an artillery shell, of the

INCOMPARABLE JEWEL OF ART WHICH WAS THE CELEBRATED CAMPO SANTO OF PISA,
which TOOK PLACE JULY 27, I944.

“At the fall of evening, toward seven o’clock, after a violent artillery fire
directed at the Piazza del Duomo, about half an hour after the firing had
ceased, a small column of smoke was seen rising over the roofs of the Campo
Santo. Running immediately into the interior of the monument, I noticed
with terror that the part of the roof above the north aisle, to be exact, over the
Cappella Aulla, was in flames, which had aheady assumed considerable pro-
portions.

“This was contrary to my optimistic predictions, made when two shells had
struck another section of the roof during the preceding day and night, causing
an explosion and consequent fall of material but no signs of fire. I rushed to the
cathedral to call for help, intending to arrest the fire somehow, and sent word
immediately to Don Luigi Luccesini, sacristan of the cathedral, so that he
could notify His Excellency the Archbishop, which he did at once.

“With the custodian, Giuseppe Quercioli, and former workmen of the
Opera del Duomo, Antonio Mazzei and Gino Farnesi, together with a few
other volunteers provided with picks, shovels, clubs, and poles, we climbed
to the roof by means of the tall ladder which I had purposely left in the interior
of the monument for two months, to facilitate the climb to the roof in case
of necessity, but certainly never thinking of fire. Now, on the spot, with anguish
and terror I realized that, given the lightning speed with which the flames
were proceeding favored by the wind, and with the few means at our disposal,
we would not be able to master the fire. With only a few jets of water the thing
in itself would have been easy, but even this was impossible, because for many
days the city had been without water. Nevertheless at some distance from the
fire we began to tear off the sheets of lead and to break the wood below'. But
the flames ran swiftly and it w'as quickly apparent that our efforts were in vain.
We had to descend again, hoping to obtain more effective aid and means.

“Meeting Don Paolo Battini, prior of San Michele in Borgo, I asked him
to go personally to His Excellency the Archbishop, to see if through the Ger-
man Command, the air raid authorities, or the fire department w'e could get
proper help. Don Battini returned to say that His Excellency the Archbishop
had neither the means nor the communications to solve the problem, but that
if W'e could suggest any method to him he would undertake it at once. In the
meantime we were to try to do everything possible which the love of the monu-

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PISA AND AREZZO

ment suggested to us. Don Battini was accompanied by a German^ met acci-
dentally on the way, and whom he entreated to intervene. We returned to the
Campo Santo and I suggested to him the use of dynamite or something similar,
to try and blow up the two bays of the roof in an attempt to save the east, north,
and south aisles. He did not agree with the proposal, saying that in his opinion,
given the lack of water, the only possible thing to do was what we had already
tried. We climbed up again and began again to strip another section of the roof;
personally I was without hope, because of the colossal size of the roof and the
flames which approached more swiftly. While the work was proceeding on
the roof, a new and violent burst of shellfire began, right on the Piazza del
Duomo, hitting the cathedral and the buildings nearby. Thus we had to descend
and flee to shelter behind the walls of the Campo Santo. One shell exploded
so near that the person beside me was knocked down by the blast. It was a
real miracle that we were able to reenter the cathedral unharmed, while
outside another violent cannonade began.

‘When the crash of the shells ceased, night was about to fall; I went again
to the monument and now more than ever realized that we were absolutely
helpless to prevent its complete destruction. With a sob in my throat and my
heart oppressed and bleeding I had to watch the tragic sight, impotent. As we
gazed upon the destroying flames I saw swiftly but clearly the long time spent
there, and my thoughts went to the many labors completed with care and love,
the complete restoration of the roof, the entire new arrangement of the sar-
cophagi and all the other monuments, the commissions, the polemics for the
conservation of the famous frescoes and their restoration, the worries about a
drop of water on the walls, the care of the roses and the lawn, all that daily
for more than twenty years had taken place there.

“I saw again the visitors, the numerous groups of Italians and foreigners who,
dazzled by all this harmony, by all this splendor, remained rapt and astonished
by such luminous beauty, in the admiration of what was the most beautiful
cemetery in the world. All now was burning. The spread of the fire was so
rapid that at midnight the destruction had already taken place, and the last
pieces of burnt wood had fallen. In the night the Piazza dei Miracoli seemed to
bleed in the vermilion color of the flames; the cathedral, the baptistery, the
campanile, again targets for the cannons in the first light of dawn, were there,
solemn, almost tinted with blood, to witness the tragic destiny of their brother,
minor in age but not in beauty, who perished and was irredeemably consumed.”

There is no doubt that the shells which poured on the cathedral, the bap-
tistery, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo Santo were American shells. Again
only military- historians will ever be able to tell us why the glorious group of

^ Probably a private soldier, whose name was never ascertained.

{ S2 }

PISA AND AREZZO

structures in the Piazza dei Miracoli should have become targets for artillery.
But a likely suggestion is contained in Farnesi’s assertion that the Germans
were using the campanile as an artillery op, and the fact that Captain Keller,
in his first exploration of the tower, found numerous objects left behind by the
Germans.

An airplane passes over in a fraction of a second, and a hundred factors may
influence its failure to hit an objective. But artillerymen do not waste their
shells or jeopardize the lives of their men by a continued bombardment of an
unnecessary target. Under the conditions which prevailed in the sector in July,
and knowing the fairly accurate means by which the artillery determines the
location of an enemy observation post, I am willing to be convinced that the
Americans believed that the German artillery fire in the area was being di-
rected from the Leaning Tower, a scant hundred yards from the Campo Santo.
Under such circumstances the decision of a commander responsible for the lives
of his men and the success of a military operation cannot be questioned. Ulti-
mately the crime of warfare in such a country as Italy is to be laid at the door
of Hitler and Mussolini. “Fewer works of art,” said Mussolini after the bom-
bardment of Genoa, “and more banners wrested from the enemy!”

The measures subsequently taken to save what could be rescued from this
debacle were unique in the history of warfare and will redound to the everlast-
ing credit of the United States Army. No civilian agency could have coped
with the situation. Indeed there were only a few hundred miserable civilians
left in the battered city. The army took hold at once. At Captain Keller’s earnest
request General Hume came to see the Campo Santo on September 4, and
promised all possible aid in covering the frescoes so as to prevent any further
damage. On September 5 large tarpaulins, obtained by Keller from iv Corps
AMG, were apphed as a first attempt at protection. On September 8 Keller re-
ceived the welcome news that General Hume had taken the matter of the
Campo Santo up with General Clark and that the latter had ordered the Fifth
Army Engineers to place an engineering officer at Captain Keller’s disposal.
This officer arrived on September 9, suggesting a lean-to roof some eight to
twelve feet wide, running around the top of the w’alls, and supported from
the ground by a system of struts, the roof to be covered with tarpaper.

Then Fifth Army enlisted the support of Peninsular Base Section, for on
September ii four officers from pbs arrived to take over the job. Captain Foster
of the 338th Engineers was in charge of the work, and he was to bring a com-
pany of eighty-two Italian soldiers under the command of their own Italian
officers, but attached to the 338th. With Captain Keller the engineers inspected
the shell-pocked roof of the cathedral, decided on the use of lead for its repair.

{ S3 }

PISA AND AREZZO

and on September 12 the Italians arrived and started work both at the Campo
Santo and the cathedral.

The first problem in the Campo Santo was to clear the debris in the interior,
and with maximum care in order to preserve all fragments of the fallen fres-
coes. This meticulous task had already been begun by Farnesi, together with
Professor Biagi, president of the Opera del Duomo. Carefully grouped and
labeled with the position in which they had been found, the fragments were
gathered together in the Opera del Duomo. Sanpaolesi was brought from Vol-
terra to supervise the work of the Italian technicians. The soldiers worked
well, rolling up the sheet of lead like an endless carpet. Specialized workmen,
provided by the contractor. Signor Conforti, the good angel of the Pisa Super-
intendency, began the colossal undertaking of cleaning the lead and fragments
of burnt wood from the broken tombs and sarcophagi, and repairing the frag-
ments. There were seventy-two funerary monuments that needed attention.

In the meantime in Florence I tried to obtain restorers to consolidate the
remaining frescoes so that nothing more would fall from the walls. The Flor-
ence Superintendency, bitterly though it needed all its own personnel, pro-
vided three capable restorers for the job, old Cavaliere Benini, the head of a
family of restorers, and two assistants, Nini and Cassini. Maj, Ward Perkins
arrived from Rome on September ii, with Cesare Brandi of the Central In-
stitute of Restoration, and accompanied the elder Benini to Pisa. I followed on
the thirteenth with the other two restorers. That day, as we passed through
the gutted southern half of Pisa, not a single living thing was visible. The city
was utterly deserted and reduced by bombs to the appearance of a landscape
on the moon.

The problem ahead of the restorers was staggering; the frescoed walls meas-
ure approximately forty feet in height and over a fifth of a mile in aggregate
length. Most of these frescoes were badly damaged, and only a few were of
poor quality. The stupendous series of the Triumph of Death, the Life of the
Hermits in the Thebaid, masterpieces of Trecento dramatic style now attributed
to the Pisan painter, Francesco Traini, had suffered severely. It was a shock to
find that these frescoes had been executed on plaster held to the walls by means
of a wicker mat. Wicker six hundred years old is of a certain fragility. The heat
of the burning beams caused large sections of it, with their load of frescoed plas-
ter, to fall away entirely, and the heat and flames weakened further areas. Ap-
proximately a quarter of the Triumph of Death had thus fallen away, a third
of the Thebaid and almost all of the Resurrection. The Last fudgment had not
been as badly affected by the fire. Those portions of the frescoes which still
adhered to the wall were in a most precarious condition, exhibiting large
bulges and blisters. In fact, on the night following the arrival of the restorers

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PISA AND AREZZO

and before they were able to get to work, one of the most moving passages
in the T heboid, the scene where Christ appears to a monk in the wilderness,
fell out and was smashed (Fig. 33).

The Assumption of the Virgin attributed to Lippo Memmi, over the south
door of the building, fell in its entirety to the pavement. But the succeeding
fresco series of the south aisle, the Life of Saint Ranieri, by Andrea Buonaiuti
da Firenze and Antonio Veneziano, and the Life of Saints Ephisus and Potitus
by Spinello Aretino, already badly damaged before the fire, suffered little fur-
ther harm. The Story of fob, by an unknown Trecento master, already in part
destroyed, came through without further damage. As for the dismal frescoes
in the east and west aisles, by mediocre sixteenth and seventeenth century paint-
ers such as Agostino Ghirlanda, Aurelio Lomi, and Zaccaria Rondinosi — they
were practically intact. The fresco in the north aisle, representing God the
Father Upholding the Universe, a majestic composition by Piero di Puccio from
Orvieto, was not badly damaged. All the Trecento frescoes, however, and par-
ticularly the series attributed to Traini, experienced lamentable alterations in
their color schemes. The heat was so great that it affected the chemical con-
stituents of the pigments, turning the soft blues and greens to a hard grey, and
all the flesh tones to brick red.

The worst damage was suffered by the twenty-four frescoes by Benozzo
Gozzoli. These were underneath the section of the roof which had been cov-
ered entirely with lead, and were thus subjected to the greatest and most pro-
longed heat. Moreover, they faced south, which exposed them to six weeks of
blazing sunlight. As a result they were almost completely obliterated. Very few
areas of these once lovely frescoes are now more than faintly recognizable;
none are still enjoyable. To preserve them at all was fantastically difficult, for
the plaster had so disintegrated throughout that at a touch it crumbled like
grated cheese.

Sometimes when the hand of tragedy seems too heavy to bear, fortune ad-
ministers a few drops of balm. So it was here, for when many sections of the
frescoes, destroyed past hope of salvage, fell away, remarkably fresh red earth
drawings by Benozzo Gozzoli’s own hand, full-scale preparations for the com-
positions of the lost frescoes, were discovered perfectly preserved under the
plaster. These sketches reveal a hardly suspected energy and rythmic motion on
the part of an artist whose finished works were often marred by woodenness.
Brought to light under such tragic circumstances, they will remain instructive
examples of Quattrocento graphic style, and give a new insight into the process
of Renaissance composition.

The work of consolidation began at once with scaffolding already existing
in Pisa. Supports had to be improvised with whatever means could be found.

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PISA AND AREZZO

The system used was admittedly temporary, so as not to prejudice later and
more permanent arrangements. Small wedges of brick were placed at the lower
edges of all threatened portions, and fixed to the surface of the wall by means
of plaster. Bulges w’ere supported by a sort of basketwork of wire drawn taut
across the bulge between nails on either side. The stability of the frescoes, at
least for a limited period, was thus assured.

The work went on under extreme difficulties and dangers. At no time during
the entire undertaking were the Germans more than thirty miles away. All
through September huge German railway guns lobbed 280-millimeter shells
into Pisa. Mines and booby traps killed and wounded people daily. One of the
eighty-two Italian soldiers was blown to bits while walking in a forbidden
area of the city. Not a house in Pisa had glass in its windows. Twenty per cent
of the buildings were razed to their foundations, another thirty per cent par-
tially destroyed; most of the roofs in the city were either completely gone or
converted to sieves by the frequent explosions. Aside from a few public foun-
tains, there was no water, nor did it return for six months, since the Germans
had blown up the enormous aqueduct from Monte San Giuliano. All fall and
winter there was no electric light, the power returning only to a few govern-
ment offices in late winter and to the town as a whole in the spring. Neither
were there any candles to be had, nor oil for lamps save at fantastic prices in
the black market.

Bit by bit the people started to come back, but life was intolerable. The con-
ditions which made Florence hell for two months lasted in Pisa half a year.
The only food was the slender rations amg was able to bring into the city.
Restaurants began to reopen, perhaps four in the entire town, offering a diet of
unidentified boiled vegetation. Although Sanpaolesi established a kind of mess
for the specialists at the offices where the Superintendency was reestablished,
it provided little more than a starvation diet. Yet not only the buildings of the
Piazza dei Miracoli were damaged — every church and palace of any impor-
tance, Romanesque or Gothic, Renaissance or Baroque, was in desperate need
of attention (Figs. 30, 36, 38).

But the work continued. On October ii, not six weeks after the arrival of
Captain Keller at the Campo Santo, the lean-to roof over the Gozzoli frescoes
and the series attributed to Francesco Traini was completed (Fig. 32). Although
not included in the original scheme, Captain Keller appealed for materials
for the erection of a somewhat narrower roof, supported by brackets, over the
frescoes of Antonio Veneziano and Spinello Aretino. On December 22 this
tract also was complete, and the work of first aid to the frescoes was at an end.

The devoted work of Captain Keller, supported whole-heartedly by General
Hume, and the labor of American and Italian engineers and Italian experts

{ 86 }

PISA AND AREZZO

thus saved for posterity what a few weeks of neglect would have brought to
total ruin. But, it must be emphasized, the work was only preliminary. Nothing
more was conceivable under wartime conditions a few miles from the front.
The vast structure, more than four hundred feet in length, still lacks a perma-
nent roof, and the slender construction of wood and canvas necessary to span
the aisles, the thousands of wooden crosspieces, the hundreds of thousands of
roof tiles, the many months of labor, will cost nearly half a million dollars,
a heavy burden for ruined Italy."

A heartening contrast to all the disasters of Pisa was the miraculous escape
of the little chapel of Santa Maria della Spina (Fig. 34). This masterpiece of
Pisan Gothic ornament and sculptural decoration was barely missed by the
same type of looo-pound demolition bomb that made gravel out of San Michele
in Borgo. The bomb struck instead a Trecento Gothic brick house across the
street, not twenty feet away, leaving nothing but the cellar and a heap of dust,
over which the almost unscratched beauty of the Spina stood in quiet triumph.
Had the bomb fallen five yards farther on, the Spina would have been blown
into the v^nno. As it was, all the statues by followers of Giovanni Pisano and
by Nino Pisano had been taken to safety by the Superintendency, and since the
lateral blast of these penetration bombs is relatively slight, the Spina suffered
only the cracking of a few pinnacles.

* * *

In the desperate urgency of the work in Florence and its environs, it was not
until September that I was able to get to Arezzo, and only in November began
to explore the wild and desolate ranges of Arezzo Province. It was another
world from the garden-and-villa landscape of Florence. On these uplands only
an occasional shepherd’s hut faces the lonely roads between the ancient towns
which ride the rock with a certain fierce pride. In these grim solitudes where
the Alpe di Catenaia merges into the Alpe di Serra, Saint Romuald beheld the
heavens opening to a procession of his white-robed monks. Saint Francis re-
ceived the Stigmata of Christ, and in a house of untrimmed stone in a village
clinging to a castle-ruin Michelangelo first saw the light.

For all its richness in works of art, Arezzo, except for the Piazza Grande, is
not one of the handsomest of Tuscan cities. Scores of Flying Fortress raids on
the neighboring railway yards did nothing to enhance its appearance. The

- Since the writing of this chapter I was appointed to administer a contribution of $15,000
from the American Committee for the Restoration of Italian Monuments, for the salvage
of the frescoes in the Campo Santo. The systematic detachment of the frescoes from the
walls was completed during the winter of 1947-4S, with spectacular results. The Italian
Go\ eminent has now pro\ided the funds for the beginning of the roof over the Campo
Santo. These operations are discussed in greater detail in the Appendi.x.

{ i'7 /

PISA AND AREZZO

bombs were so widely scattered over the center that it is very remarkable that
there was not more widespread and serious damage to the monuments. The
most serious disaster was the destruction by bombs of two rooms in the museum.
Although the Fascist director, Alessandro del Vita, had assured the Superin-
tendency in Florence, by letter, that the museum had been completely evacu-
ated, when the bomb struck every picture was still in place. Ten were blown
to bits so minute that reconstruction was out of the question, and six were badly
damaged but in part salvageable. Approximately three hundred pieces of ma-
jolica were demolished, luckily not the priceless collection of Aretine, Gubbio,
and Deruta ware of the Quattrocento and Cinquecento, but still fine pieces, in-
cluding a lovely series of eighteenth century Montelupo plates. Del Vita did
nothing to clean up the rubble and salvage the pieces, so the whole burden fell
on Procacci and Morozzi, with the one Superintendency truck which the Ger-
mans had not requisitioned. Making several trips, they brought back to Flor-
ence every work of art from the museum that would fit in the truck, leaving
the largest things, the huge altarpieces by Signorelli, in the firm and compara-
tively safe substructions of the museum, protected by a rapidly constructed
shelter of concrete. On one of these trips, just as the truck, the workmen,
Procacci, and Morozzi were about to leave the town with a load of works of
art, there was another Flying Fortress raid. Procacci and Morozzi escaped with
their lives only because the bomb that struck not twenty feet away happened
to be a dud.

Most of the mediaeval and Renaissance churches of the city suffered damage
of some sort, although in general not beyond repair. The Badia, however,
whose interior is a severe and imposing example of Vasari’s architectural style,
was hit, and the complex system of vaulting and saucer domes was being rapidly
waterlogged by rain leaking through the devastated roof. Still worse, the
spacious two-story cloister, a marvel of Renaissance elegance and harmony, at-
tributed to Giuliano da Maiano, had lost two of its sides (Figs. 44-45). Their
ruins lay spilled in a mountainous tangle of beams, rubble, and broken columns.
And even in San Francesco, where the roof tiles had been disarranged by near-by
blasts, the water was leaking into the matchless fresco series by Piero della
Francesca.

Furthermore, no one as yet had the slightest idea what had happened to
Borgo Sansepolcro, with its fresco of the Resurrection by Piero della Francesca.
We could find no one in Arezzo who had yet been to Borgo, and the Germans
were still entrenched in the heights of the Alpe della Luna, overlooking the
city and the Tiber valley. Our journey to Borgo. accompanied by Procacci and
Professor Salmi of the University of Florence, on September 8, a year after the
Italian surrender, was a memorable trip indeed. Such were the almost in-

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credible exasperations, particularly the bogging down of an entire British con-
voy in the bottomless fields of mud near Palazzo del Pero, blocking the only
by-pass around the blown bridge, that the twenty-five-mile trip took more than
three hours.

The town was severely damaged. Allied fighter bombers had attacked Ger-
man military transport outside the gates, so the modern quarter was devastated.
Several fine mediaeval houses had been damaged by bombs, others blown up
by the Germans, and the huge tower in the center of the Piazza, known af-
fectionately as “La Berta” (Bertha), had been mined and utterly destroyed,
covering the square with rubble ten feet deep. The Resurrection was safe. The
custodian of the Palazzo Communale unlocked the door of the main hall and
we saw the fresco in all its impersonal majesty. Deeply moved, we gazed on the
triumphant central figure, quiet as a statue in the light of dawn, upon the bare
Aretine hills beyond, upon the grey clouds, upon the soldiers, in their armor
and blue and lavender and red cloaks, sleeping below the mighty miracle.

On the way back to Arezzo we made a detour to Monterchi to see Piero’s
Madonna del Par to in the little cemetery chapel. The protecting wall was taken
down while we watched, and we could return rejoicing in the news that every
work by Piero in Tuscany was intact.

For the work of repair in Arezzo Province we appointed a young engineer,
Ubaldo Lumini, whose father and brother both worked for the Superintendency
as restorers. He set up housekeeping in the Casa Vasari, and with poor food
and no fuel worked devotedly throughout the winter against the greatest ob-
stacles. He traveled on anything, walked, hitched rides, pedaled a bicycle over
mountain roads in any kind of weather, used every wile known to the Tuscans
in order to obtain material for the monuments and get the work organized
and under way. His country owes Lumini a real debt of gratitude for his
extraordinary energy'. Leonetto Tintori, the miracle worker from Prato, his
wife, and his assistant, Rosi, were brought down to Arezzo in mid-September
to work on the frescoes which were to be detached, and during November
the Lorentino d’Andrea fresco from San Sebastiano, the frescoes by Vasari and
by Marco da Montepulciano in the ruined church of San Bartolommeo, and
several other damaged frescoes were brought back to Florence to be completely
restored in Procacci’s Gabinetto del Restauro. By this time all the roof repairs
were completed at the Badia, and by the end of February there was no longer
a monument in Arezzo with a leaky roof or gaping windows. In May the last
of the work in the cloister of the Badia was completed — every column and
capital salvaged from the rubble, and the existing sides of the cloister properly-
consolidated and reroofed.

Much of my time in Arezzo Province was spent in the Casentino, the upper

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valley of the Arno, rich in mediaeval and Renaissance monuments. During
all these trips there loomed above us the wild crag of La Verna, to which some-
how, sometime, we had to ascend. For here was not only the sanctuary where
St. Francis received the Stigmata, but the finest series of terra cotta rehefs out-
side Florence, the masterpieces of Andrea della Robbia. It is difficult enough
to get to La Verna in peace time; in war time it was impossible. The three roads
which approach the four-thousand-foot peak were all blown up by the Ger-
mans in crucial spots. Bailey bridges installed to permit passage of troops were
removed at once for use elsewhere. At each of the three roads we were turned
back, sometimes after half completing the ascent.

After three unsuccessful attempts, on October 21 we navigated a mud road
through valley farms, a ford across a torrent, and several miles of mountain
mule track which eventually rejoined the main road beyond the last blown
bridge. From there we climbed in curve after curve onto what seemed the ridge-
pole of the world, with endless views off into the Casentino in the colored
luminosity of the late afternoon. There, like two toy cities, sat Poppi and Bib-
biena on their little mounds, under the immensity of the Pratomagno, over
which we could gaze into the Chianti hills toward Siena, south past Arezzo
and the Valdichiana to the profile of Mount Cetona. Finally we came to the
village of Chiusi della Verna and the cobblestone path that climbs at almost
forty degrees up to the sanctuary.

The simple buildings of the monastery and its church and chapels presented
the too familiar aspect of a shelled village. Roofs were full of gaping holes,
walls were battered, debris littered the terraces. The Father Superior told us
that the bombardment had lasted ten days, from August 26 to September 4.
Although no Germans were in the monastery at any time, according to his
account, they had artillery positions directly below it. These and the entire
monastery were heavily shelled by the British. On one occasion when a flight
of Allied planes passed over, the monks were certain that La Verna was going
to suffer the fate of Montecassino, but no bombs were dropped. Since the shell-
ing continued for a day and a half after the departure of the Germans, the
monks finally sent one of their number with a white flag to the British officers
of the Indian division that was operating in the area to inform them that there
were no longer any Germans on the peak. At first he was taken for a spy, but
the officers who returned to the sanctuary with him found that it could no
longer be considered a military objective.

The loggia around the Chiesa Maggiore was more than half destroyed and
all the roofs devastated by uncountable shells, and a direct hit on the shrine
near the entrance of the church destroyed the Pieta by Giovanni della Robbia,
a work of minor importance. The campanile was damaged and badly shaken,

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PISA AND AREZZO

a primitive Romanesque double-arched window in the Cappella degli Angeli
was smashed. Several shells pierced the vaulting of the church, yet the beautiful
rehefs by Andrea della Robbia and the best of the school pieces escaped any
sort of injury, either by flying fragments or falling masonry. On either side of
the nave, under their tabernacles, still shone the two reliefs of the Annuncia-
tion and the Adoration of the Child-, in the left transept stood the immense
Ascension, a thick choir of superbly draped apostle figures below the Christ
borne heavenward by angels. The shells had passed harmlessly over the little
chapel of the Stigmata. The great Crucifixion relief by Andrea della Robbia
dominates, even forms, the apse. In this colossal work Andrea rises above the
decorative charm customarily associated with the glazed reliefs of his shop
into a realm of tragic suffering and intense spirituality.

The problem was now how to accomplish the repair of the damaged church,
to prevent the vaulting from falling and crushing the reliefs, how to get men
and materials to this inaccessible place. I am sorry to have to admit that La
Verna was one of the total failures on the part of the mfaa office. Whatever
work was done during my stay in Tuscany was executed by the monks them-
selves, without help from anyone. Lumini succeeded in making one trip to the
mountain top in December — on a bicycle — before the winter snows cut off La
Verna entirely from the outside world. He was able to do no more than advise
the monks on improvising repairs to the church roof by using tiles and slate
from other portions of the monastery, and boards sawn from the timbers of
the surrounding woods. This the monks did, and it was sufficient to protect the
building against further damage by rain and snow. In the spring Lumini re-
turned and drew up a complete preventivo for the necessary repairs. This was
one of the projects which were held up by the cumbersome finance system,
and was still unfinanced when the Province of Arezzo was turned back to
the Italian Government on May to.

On one of the unsuccessful attempts to reach La Verna, I had one of the
most moving experiences of my whole stay in Tuscany. Pieve Santo Stefano,
a village of two thousand inhabitants, lies not far from Borgo Sansepolcro.
Walled in by desolate hills that rise fifteen hundred feet above it, the town
hangs in one long clump of houses and towers above the young Tiber, here
rushing by as green as glass upon its stones and ledges. At first, as we ap-
proached Pieve, Franco and I thought the town was still there. Then we began
to realize what had happened. Nothing but a few walls and roofs, and the
facade of the town overhanging the Tiber, still stood. The Germans had sys-
tematically demolished the entire village house by house, leaving only the
Collegiata, two small chapels, the parish house, and two-thirds of the Palazzo
Communale. The operation took weeks. The use of airplane bombs instead of

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PISA AND AREZZO

mines resulted in blowing the center of each house, while the corners, some-
times the end walls as well, remained standing with fragments of roof still ad-
hering to them. These jagged, amputated portions of habitations standing
above the wreckage presented a somehow even more tragic aspect than the
completely leveled towns such as Levane and San Godenzo.

The principal work of art in the town, a large relief by a follower of Andrea
della Robbia, was in the Oratory of San Francesco, which could be reached
only by climbing over some two hundred yards of snapped beams and shattered
masonry. The door of the chapel was open, and we gazed into the wrecked in-
terior. The left wall of the chancel had fallen inward and spilled across the
high altar and the sanctuary. Above this heap of brick and plaster, threatened
momently by the collapse of the unsupported apse vaulting, stood the enormous
relief of the Assumption of the Virgin (Fig. 35). Serene in its blue and white
perfection, the great altarpiece shone like a vision in the sudden light of the
broken apse.

Presently I became aware that some of the townspeople had followed me
into the chapel, the aged mayor among them. Emboldened by their evident
interest in the relief, I told them that I planned to dismantle it as soon as pos-
sible and take it to Arezzo where it could be restored and kept safely until there
was some place in Pieve where it might be received. At once their faces fell.
The people pleaded with me not to take the relief away. The town would an-
swer for its safety. A young man, who I found out later was the geometra com-
munale, a kind of town engineer, offered to shore the vault with the beams
from the destroyed houses, of which there was, alas, a copious supply at hand.
If I could send the restorer to Pieve, they would find some way of putting h im
up and feeding him while he dismantled the relief, and reassembled it in their
own Collegiata.

“E tutto quello che ci rimane!”" said someone. These people had no houses
save what they could put together out of the standing fragments, they had lost
all their belongings, they had not even a motor vehicle or a wagon to take
away the rubble, which they were moving with spades and wheelbarrows,
but they were willing to work and sacrifice to save the one really beautiful
thing in the town. Moved beyond all words, I agreed. I promised to send a
restorer as soon as I could spare one. but I warned them that the difficulties
of the journey from Florence might cause considerable delay. No matter,
said they; whenever I arrived I would find the vault properly shored and the
relief as safe as they could make it. The people went back to their job of carry-
ing away with their hands the ruins of their homes, and I renewed my attempts
to reach La Verna.

“It is all we have lett!"

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PISA AND AREZZO

Not for four montlis was I able to return to Pieve Santo Stefano. On March 7
I transported the restorer Liso from Florence to Arezzo, and from there sent
him off by bicycle to Pieve. When I arrived in Pieve on March 17, with some
of the special plaster needed for the work, I found that Liso had the relief half
dismantled. The upper portion was being laid out carefully in the apse of the
Collegiata. True to their word the townspeople had safely shored the vault of
San Francesco. They had cleared the streets of the town so well that we were
able to drive from one end to the other. And they had even built a suspension
bridge across the Tiber. The towers were made of tree trunks, the roadway of
planks, the cables of the cable line which the Germans had used to transport
building materials to the near-by fortresses of the Gothic line. Primitive though
the construction and the materials were, the principles involved were perfectly
sound, and the whole thing was a triumph of resourcefulness, so strong that
not only the jeep but a small truck that the Commune had acquired could cross
it in complete safety. Before leaving Tuscany for good I had the joy of re-
turning to Pieve Santo Stefano, across this same bridge, to see the Della Robbia
relief remounted intact in the Collegiata.

One of the most tragic cultural losses in Tuscany concerned not a work of
art but a creation of nature, the dense forest of Camaldoli. The columns of this
living temple were once the setting for an intense spiritual life. Here, after
Saint Romuald’s vision, he founded the most ascetic order known to the West,
under whose rule white-robed hermits lived in solitary huts under the most
rigorous conditions, ate their few meals alone, celebrated solitary mass, com-
municated with no one, came together only for the daily offices. Their tradition
of penitential meditation persisted into the Renaissance as a countercurrent to
the paganism of revived antiquity, and the shadow of this mountain forest
haunts the most luminous moments of the Florentine Quattrocento. The Medici
and other great families had their cells here in the silence of the lofty fir trees,
and Lorenzo the Magnificent walked with his Platonic Academy through the
forest of Camaldoli.

Early in March of 1945 I received a distraught letter from Professor Calaman-
drei, rector of the University of Florence, diat the Allies were cutting down
the ancient forest, indeed that the most beautiful section, lining the road from
the convent up to the Sacred Hermitage nearly a thousand feet above, had
already been laid waste. It seemed scarcely believable that this could have taken
place without our knowledge. Poggi had been to Camaldoli in late October and
found all in order. In mid-December I had met the Father Chamberlain in
Niccoli's office in Siena, and he had said nothing of any cutting. Furthermore,
the Italian Forest Militia was bound by law to notify the Superintendencv of

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PISA AND AREZZO

any disaster to the forest, which since 1900 has had the status of a national
monument.

Procacci and I went immediately to Camaldoli to see what could be done.
The account was only too true. The solenm aisles of the millennial forest were
a scene of wholesale destruction. Fir trees of immense height, some of them
hundreds of years old, wxre strewn for three miles along the road. The dense
black forest was gone, nor could its beauty be replaced for at least a century.
The rich undergrowth of golden moss, fern, cyclamen, broom and wild straw-
berries was trampled to pulp and slime by the trucks, bulldozers, and tractors
of the 2nd Forestry Group (British). As we climbed the steep road the silence
of the black forest suddenly closed around us, as if a door had shut behind us.
In these heights the untouched snow lay all about, and hundred-foot trunks
walled out the sunlight, the shouts, the noise of the machines, the rapacious
saws, and the falling trees. High around the white huts of the monks in this
last retreat waved the black crown of the ancient fir trees.

At all costs we had to insure that at least this area around the Sacred Hermit-
age remain unspoiled. The British forestry officer stated frankly that the de-
struction of the great forest by means of felling entire tracts without regard
to appearances or the future of the land was a crime justified only by military
necessity. The wood was needed for the bridges across the Po, essential for the
conduct of the spring offensive that would end the war in Italy. No other
method would procure the wood as fast as it was needed. Other forests existed
near by, at La Lama and at Campigna, but were inaccessible because the roads
were mined. Enough ready-cut wood lay about the forest to make it unneces-
sar)' to fell near the Hermitage itself for two months. More than that the forestry’
oflScer could not promise.

We made our way sorrowfully down again, through the dense pillars of
the forest to the destruction that reached daily nearer. We had done what we
could. All that remained was to write a long and earnest report to the mfa.v
Subcommission, asking that it urge afhq to de-mine the roads to La Lama and
Campigna so that those forests could be used instead. The Subcommission's
efforts were successful. The mighty crown around the Sacred Hermitage, the
site of St. Romuald's dream, is still inviolate. But the forest of Camaldoli is
no longer what it was. Here the insatiable demands of war reached very near
to the heart of Italian culture.

# * #

Many adventures — too many to be told — filled fourteen months of ceaseless
activity in Tuscany. Hardly a road in the region was not traveled by “Lucky 13";
few villages from Pontremoli to Piombino were not visited — Pistoia, Pescia,

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PISA AND AREZZO

and Lucca under the Apennine wall, the ravaged churches and palaces of half-
destroyed Livorno, intact Carrara, and devastated Massa, the mediaeval villages
of the high Garfagnana, the tranquil valley of Lunigiana under the glittering
Apuan Alps. The cold statistics of the Appendix must suffice to suggest the work
we did, or attempted, or left undone. But no such account could ever recreate
the events as they happened, or communicate to others the emotions that can
never be eradicated from the memory of those whose lives were so bound up
with a period in which the continued existence of the art of Italy hung in the
balance.

{ 95 /

CHAPTER VIII

THE RETURN OF THE FLORENTINE
ART TREASURES

T hroughout the autumn and winter of 1944-1945 the fate of the missing
works of art was of constant concern. In September Poggi and I went
to the Archbishop of Florence, His Eminence Cardinal Elia della
Costa, to request his aid in tracing them. Deeply moved by our appeal, the
Cardinal promised to appeal to the Vatican for aid in convincing the Ger-
mans of the importance in world opinion of keeping these works of art intact
and in Italy, and perhaps even In persuading them to disclose their whereabouts.

In the following month we were informed through these ecclesiastical chan-
nels that the works of art were in the Upper Adige, in a place called Neumelans
in Sand; but I could find no such place in any Italian guide, nor did even
Poggi know where it might be. On November 20 a Bolognese Partisan who
had crossed the Allied lines came to the Superintendency to look for me. His
narrative, taken down by Fasola during my absence, told how, near the end
of July, two German trucks with trailers, loaded with works of art, arrived at
the Villa Taroni at Marano sul Panaro, a small village in the hills some fifteen
miles south of Modena. Here the unpacked works of art, which the Germans
said came from the Pitti and the Uffizi, and must therefore have been from
Montagnana, were unloaded into the villa, a number being left outside under
the portico for lack of space. Some of them had served as decorations at a ball
given by the German militaiq' in the early days of August. About the middle
of August the Germans left the villa and the pictures recommenced their
wanderings.

Allied broadcasts reproaching the Germans with the colossal looting of
Florentine works of art brought indignant replies from Fascist and Nazi radio
alike, and finally, on December ii, elicited a release by Prof. Carlo Anti, the
Republican Fascist Director General of Fine .Arts, declaring that he had in-
spected the deposits of works of art removed from areas near Florence then
involved in war operations, and found that except for slight damage they were
all intact. He did not disclose their location nor whether they were in Italian
or German hands.

In March, as the time drew near when the breaking of the German lines
below Bologna would permit deposits to be reached. I made contact with the
OSS to determine what help they could give in the protection of the works of
art. It was decided that the oss agents in North Italy should try to obtain in-

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RETURN OF THE ART TREASURES

formation from the Patriarch of Venice. The ingenious notion was due in its
entirety to Marchese Serlupi-Crescenzi, who had protected Berenson during
the German occupation, and who had acquaintances among oss officials, par-
ticularly with the American major, Alessandro Cagiati, who undertook to as-
sist us. Early in April assurances were received from oss agents in North Italy
that they were investigating the condition and the safety of the works of art,
and that, indeed they were up until that moment, quite safe.

On April 27, only a few days after the liberation of Bologna, Captain Croft-
Murray, newly installed as mfaa officer for Emilia, wrote from Bologna the
exact position of the works of art, which he had learned from Dr. Pietro Zam-
petti, temporary director of the gallery of Modena. Zampetti had not only been
able to make a short visit to Marano while the pictures had been there, but
had received oral instructions from the Fascist Republican Ministry of Public
Instruction in Padua concerning their further transference and the location of
everything taken from the surroundings of Florence.^ It was all housed in two
deposits, one at the castle of Campo Tures above Brunico and the other at San
Leonardo in Val Passiria, north of Merano — both sites only a few miles from
the Brenner Pass. Not until I reached Campo Tures did I discover that this was
actually the place mentioned by the Germans through the Vatican, for the
castle was originally the property of the Netimelans family, and the pre-1919
name of the village was Sand im Taufers.

The story of the fantastic proceedings was fully recorded in the documents
of the German Kunstschuiz, turned over to us by the Germans and analyzed
at length by Lieutenant Colonel DeWald and Wing Commander Douglas Coo-
per of the RAF. To make clear the background, it is necessary to recall that, as re-
lated in Chapter III, Colonel Langsdorff had conferred with the Florentine au-
thorities in the Palazzo Pitti on July 15, assuring them of the complete German
agreement with the orders of Professor Anti from Padua that nothing be re-
moved from the Florentine deposits to North Italy. On the same day he had
wired to his own Military Government that he was nonetheless going to take
over immediately supervision of the evacuation of these deposits. On the nine-
teenth he had promised Poggi that he would diligently trace down the two
Cranachs (which were at that moment in his room in the Excelsior), and on
the twenty-eighth he returned for a last visit to Florence. Actually in the inter-
vening days Langsdorff had been in Verona, conferring with SS General Karl
Wolff, head of the German Military Government in Italy, referred to in previous
chapters.

Wolff referred the matter to Heinrich Himmler, and as a result ordered

^ A complete account of his excellent work as custodian of the Bologna deposits under
appalling conditions was published in pamphlet form bv Dr. Zampetti in 1946.

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RETURN OF THE ART TREASURES

LangsdorfiE to return to the area of Florence and remove all works of art that
could possibly be “saved,” placing eight trucks at his disposal for this purpose.
Langsdorff pretended to Poggi to know nothing of the visit of Colonel Bau-
mann, which had taken place on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh. He
assured Poggi, who was then worried over the proximity of the deposit at
Dicomano to the Gothic Line, that if the sculptures were moved from there
they would be brought back to Florence. He then went at once to Dicomano,
loaded his trucks with sculpture, and sent them not to Florence but to Verona,
where they arrived on the night of August 4.

During the return journey Langsdorff stopped at Marano to inspect the
pictures from Montagnana. In the meanwhile. Professor Anti, by no means
as easy in his mind about the safety of the works of art as his subsequent broad-
cast of December ii might have led one to suppose, was trying desperately
to obtain the transfer of the Montagnana pictures into a central deposit formed
by the Italians in the Isole Borromee in Lago Maggiore. It was for this pur-
pose that he had sent Zampetti to Marano. When Langsdorff again visited
General Wolff on August 5, the frequent visits of Italian of&ciais to his head-
quarters and their specific requests for the removal of the pictures to the Isole
Borromee had left him in no doubt of the wishes of the Fascist Government
in the matter.

Yet General Wolff’s decision was to send all the works of art taken from
Florence into the Alto Adige, or South Tyrol, already thoroughly absorbed by
Germany, and Italian in name only. Langsdorff was at once despatched to
Bolzano to obtain accommodations for the works of art. He toured the area
with Dr. Ringler, the German installed as superintendent in Bolzano, and
selected the castle of Campo Tures and the unused jail at San Leonardo. There-
upon Langsdorff returned to Tuscany, where the movements of the team are
known from day to day. Here is the main outline of the events of August :

8th Langsdorff transmits to General Greiner at Marano the orders from
General Wolff to evacuate Montagnana pictures to Alto Adige. Inspects
Poggio a Caiano with Lieutenant Wawrowetz, under heavy artillery
fire.

9th Returns to Marano and begins loading.

loth Starts in the evening for Bolzano with Marano pictures, arriving on
the tveelfth.

nth Reidemeister takes Dicomano sculptures from Verona to Campo Tures.
13th Langsdorff arrives with Marano pictures at San Leonardo.

20th Reidemeister and Wawrowetz visit Poggio a Caiano.

22nd Begin evacuation of Poggio, including Contini pictures at Trefiano.

{ 9S }

RETURN OF THE ART TREASURES

23rd Thirty cases from Poggio sent to Bologna, for temporary storage in the
Accademia.

24th Reidemeister returns to Bologna to organize convoy; discovers that
works of art from Soci and Poppi had been taken independently by
the 305th Infantry Division to a site near Forli, on the Adriatic.

26th Twenty-eight more cases from Poggio arrive in Bologna.

27th Five truckloads go from Bologna to Verona.

28th Reidemeister visits Poppi and Soci loot near Forli; orders their move-
ment north. They leave on the thirty-first.

By September 7 the last of the stolen works of art from the surroundings of
Florence had arrived at the deposits in the Alto Adige, over roads which were
under constant bombardment by the Allies. From August 29 until September 3,
however, the trucks had continued to arrive in Bolzano from the south, only
to be refused the fuel necessary to continue their journey. By the time a special
fuel ration was finally received, no fewer than twenty-one trucks full of works
of art, plus the ambulance containing the Adam and Eve of Cranach, had piled
up in Bolzano, immobilized in a town which was being bombed by Flying
Fortresses daily. In the struggle to obtain control over these works of art, the
Germans were perfectly willing to sacrifice the objects themselves.

The subsequent correspondence demonstrates that the Italians tried des-
perately to regain control, and that Langsdorff stalled them, pretending to have
saved the works of art from inevitable destruction by shellfire or bombing,
while he informed his superiors that they had been rescued from the depreda-
tions of the Anglo-American barbarians. Not only the Italians were worried;
honest Germans also were deeply concerned. In October Langsdorff received
from those staunch friends of international culture and decency, Heydenreich
and Consul Wolf, an astonishing proposal in view of the circumstances. They re-
quested a special order from the Fiihrer declaring that the works of art were held
in trust for the Italian nation, a complete inventory to be delivered to the
Italians, and a visit of inspection by an Italo-German team consisting of the
petitioners, Langsdorff, Anti, Pacchioni (superintendent of Milan), Morassi
(superintendent of Genoa), and others. Langsdorff made no reply. A renewal
of the request W’as met by a pointed inquiry on the part of Langsdorff as to
why Heydenreich was so interested in the Italians. Not until November 28
was Anti permitted to make his inspection, and then the inventories handed
him were amended to omit the name of the deposit, the names of the compilers,
the date, and the Finaly collection, which had been brought up to Bolzano
independently by a German unit quartered in the Villa Landau-Finaly. More-
over, the tw’O Cranachs were displaced to form part of the body of the inventory^,

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instead of being on a separate sheet. A similarly altered list was handed to
Mussolini.

On December 12, the day following Anti’s broadcast, four grim visitors
were conducted around the deposit at San Leonardo by Dr. Ringler. They
were Dr. von Hummel from the Reich Chancellery (later the prime mover in
the theft of the gold coin collections belonging to the Austrian monasteries),
Professor Rupprecht from the Vienna Armory, Herr Brueschwyler and Herr
Schedelmann, dealers from Munich and Vienna respectively. No explanation
of this visit was given. On January 26, 1945, a circular letter was sent at the
order of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy, to the supreme SS headquarters in
each of nine still occupied countries, ordering that all confiscated works of
art be reported to Hitler’s advisers so that the Fiihrer himself could decide
what use he wished to make of them. General Wolff received a copy. When
interrogated by Colonel DeWald and Wing Commander Cooper, Wolff later
stated that he received direct orders from Himmler to transport the entire
contents of both Campo Tures and San Leonardo to Altaussee in Austria, the
huge salt mine which already contained over six thousand works of art looted
from Poland, Belgium, France, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and which were
destined for the Fiihrermuseum in Linz. Wolff protested that he was unable
to comply for lack of transportation and fuel. Yet on February 23, 1945, Dr.
Schmidt, one of Langsdorff's assistants, and a young lady photographer from
Wolff's staff were despatched to Campo Tures and San Leonardo to photo-
graph all they could— for an album to present to the Fiihrer on his birthday,
April 20. Ringler found them still at it on March 20, taking Contax pictures
of Raphael’s Donna Velala and the Rembrandt Old Man, unpacked, unframed,
outdoors in the snow. Ringlet’s protest to Langsdorlf elicited an emphatic
warning that the works of art were under the direction of the highest authority.
Requests for restitution, by the Italian Ambassador to Ribbentrop and by Mus-
solini to General Wolff, proved equally futile. When the Germans surrendered
on May 2, it was not to the Italians but to the Allied authorities that General
Wolff ordered Langsdorff and his gang to deliver the contents of the two
deposits.

The foregoing seemed to us conclusive evidence that Hitler wished to in-
corporate the works of art removed from Florence into the Fiihrermuseum in
Linz. Without any doubt and beyond all comparison the works of art stolen
from Italy represented the most important cultural treasure from the point of
view of quality taken by the Germans from any occupied country, or for that
matter from all the other occupied countries together. Despite the enormous
volume of the works of art stored at Altaussee. many hundreds were worthless
German nineteenth and twentieth century paintings, and the majority were by

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perfectly competent Dutch, Flemish, and occasionally Italian masters. More
than half of the works in the two Alto Adige deposits were in this second
category, but the rest were on a level of universal importance. In Altaussee
only the Ghent Altarpiece, the Bruges Madonna of Michelangelo, the Lob-
kowitz Breughel, the Czernin Vermeer, the Altdorffer St. Florian Altar, some
Rembrandts, and the loot from Naples were in this supreme category. More-
over, most of the works in Altaussee were in some way or other purchased
(although often under duress), and none of them came from state-owned
museums. Yet so much publicity has surrounded the Altaussee salt mine that
the importance* of the Italian booty has been generally ignored; indeed it is
not widely known in this country that the Germans took anything from Italy.
The mass looting of the public collections of Florence may well measure the
Germans’ opinion of Italian collaboration — or their basic convictions that Italian
efforts and sympathies had been on the side of the Allies all along.

If the Fascist Republican Government had been anxious to recover the Flor-
entine works of art, the attitude of the Superintendency personnel in the
north, mostly anti-Fascist and in close contact with the Committee of National
Liberation, can be imagined. The contact already established between our of-
fice and the Partisans through the agency of the oss blossomed and bore fruit
when Venice and Venetia (under whose administration the Alto Adige nor-
mally falls) were liberated. Prof. Ferdinando Forlati, superintendent of monu-
ments and galleries for Venice, had long been in contact with members of
the Committee of National Liberation on the subject of the art deposits of
the Alto Adige. On April 30 Forlati went to the newly arrived provincial com-
missioner of AMG in Venice in order to make clear the necessity of reaching the
site as soon as possible.

On May 2 the German forces in Italy surrendered. On May 3 Forlati was
invited by the oss to a meeting at the Albergo Danieli. There he indicated to the
oss officers the exact site of the deposits, and obtained from a Captain Kelly
not only the documents that would facilitate his own journey into the area,
still in a state of total confusion and not yet occupied by the Allies, but an
American car, an Italian driver, and an Italian warrant officer. Forlati left the
same day, arriving at Trento the following day along with the columns of
American troops, and in the midst of the Italian flags that flew from every
window. On the fifth, along with Antonino Rusconi, the superintendent of
Trento, he arrived in San Leonardo to find the town still completely under
German control.

There was Reidemeister, on the spot and waiting, with his assistant. Professor
Bruhns. Comm. Teodoro Nazari, president of the Committee of National
Liberation in Merano, had accompanied the party from that citv, along with

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a dubious character called von Harten, who pretended to be the local repre-
sentative of the International Red Cross, whose “protection” he claimed to be
able to dispense. Together the strange party visited the deposit and found that,
except for slight damage to certain pictures, the whole collection had survived
remarkably well. At that time Nazari, intensely interested in the restitution of
the works of art to Florence, offered his services and the aid of the cnl for the
solution of the exacting problem of packing the hundreds of loose pictures.

On May 6 the party from Venice, Trento, and Merano continued to Campo
Tures, where they found an American unit already in occupation. On the
following day they received from Capt. Michael Mohr, Infantry, stationed
in nearby Brunico, the permission to make their inspection. The document
which records this visit is signed not only by the Italians and by Captain
Mohr, but by Bernhard Degenhardt (German art historian, formerly employed
at the Herziana Library in Rome and for a short while director of the Al-
bertina), Captain Schmidt and Major Evers of the KunsUchutz, and Langsdorff
himself. The Germans were most anxious, post facto, to demonstrate how
scrupulous had been their care and how high their moral purpose. Present
also at this inspection was the British Major Minor, from the staff of amg Fifth
Army, sent to assure the safety of the works of art during the period when
Captain Keller, whose territory now ran from Genoa and Turin nearly to
Venice, and from the Brenner to Bologna, was busy in Milan.

In the meantime, since the responsibility for the w’orks of art found in the
Alto Adige was that of Fifth Army, there was nothing I could do but wait
impatiently to be called. On May 9 Major Minor wired me to come at once.
Franco, Rossi, and I started early the following day, not knowing how' far that
trip might take us or how soon we would be able to return. The excitement at
the Superintendency was past description. Actually, may I confess, it was not
the first time since the break-through at Bologna on April 23 that Franco and
I had crossed dae Apennines. Distracted by worry over his family, from w'hom
he had not heard since his liberation in Naples in September of 1943, Franco
had appealed silently by every look and action to be taken home. On April 30
I could resist no longer and started old. without permission and against or-
ders. over Route 65. the scene of such bitter conflicts during that interminable
winter, through the blasted villages of Loiano, Monghidoro, Zula, past the
complete desert that had once been Pianoro. through Bologna, fat and proud
and brown in the middle of its ruined suburbs, along the Via Emilia crow'ded
with German convoys coming in to surrender, and hnallv to Mantua, its
domes and spires tranquil across the shallow lakes of the Mincio. When w’e
finally found Franco’s family in a refuge in the countrv, the parents wept,

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the school teacher wept, Franco wept, I wept, even the geese seemed pro-
foundly affected.

So we knew the road, with its vistas of hundreds of square miles of country
pitted everywhere by shell holes, and mountainsides showing more shell holes
than grass. The trees were shaved into spikes by the passing shells, the farm-
houses reduced to sand heaps, the roads torn by artillery and mines, the villages
smashed and tottering, reeking sharply of death in the warm air of a spring
morning. On May ii we arrived at Fifth Army headquarters in a hot meadow
on the outskirts of shattered Verona. Since Captain Keller was still detained
in Milan, Major Minor advised me to continue on to Bolzano. Inured as we
were to destruction and horror by this time, the catastrophic ruin of the Adige
valley was still something new, where mass raids of Flying Fortresses had
altered the very landscape, ploughing it into craters twenty feet deep, leaving
freight and passenger trains dangling into the muddy stream like bunches of
grapes.

More and more Germans were encountered, in trucks, staff cars, and armored
vehicles all along our route, and when in the last light of afternoon we arrived
in Bolzano, we began to wonder which side had surrendered eight days before.
The colossal arrogance of the still-armed Germans, who outnumbered us on
the streets of the city ten to one, and shouldered us into the gutter when they
could, was countered by no American protest save the clenched jaws of the
GFs who slept in the Pfarrplatz. From there they could see the Germans in
the best hotels, and watch the glittering and be-swastikaed officers feasting on
rich foods and rosy Merano wine. The Americans, who held the area only
lightly owing to the rapidity of the German collapse in North Italy, were
under orders to avoid any appearance of an incident with the Germans, largely
SS, until the area could be brought more completely under control.

Major Minor had been only to Campo Tures, so Rossi and I decided to start
the following day for San Leonardo. During the whole drive through the
beautiful, but somewhat uninteresting Alpine valley above Merano we did not
meet a single Allied vehicle or see a single Italian civilian. Often we met Ger-
man trucks and automobiles, full of glowering Germans, still in uniform and
heavily armed. Every village along the route was bursting with German soldiers,
every inn guarded by German sentries, until we finally arrived at the hamlet
of San Leonardo in Val Passiria (the former Sanct Leonhard im Passeiertal),
like any Austrian village, save for a scattering of Italian working people. Pass-
ing the great oak before the house of Andreas Hofer, the local south Tyrolean
hero, in a flurry of dust amid honking geese and screaming children, we ar-
rived before the simple Austrian jail which contained the Florentine treasures.

For Rossi, Franco, and me, who had together visited the rifled deposits in

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August and September of 1944, it was a moment of intense excitement. The GI
on guard fumbled long with the keys before he was able to let us into the dark
hallway of the ground floor, and further keys had to be produced and identified
as we went from floor to floor and from room to room. But the long months
of work and waiting seemed suddenly worth while.

Here, piled against each other in damp and narrow cells, were the pictures
from Montagnana. In one room all the Virtues of Antonio and Piero del Pol-
laiuolo stood against the wall, in another we could quickly recognize Cara-
vaggio’s Bacchus, and Titian’s Philip 11 gazing at the Saint Sebastian of Ercole
da Ferrara, in another the two great Rubens landscapes were stacked against
the Bambocciata of Dosso Dossi. With a cry of glee Rossi lifted a cheap bed
covering to disclose the Eve of Cranach with the Adam visible behind her. One
solemn room contained the Crucifixion of Signorelli, Botticelli’s Fallas and the
Centaur (Fig. 50), the Adoration of the Magi by Lorenzo Monaco, and the
Annunciation and the Madonna Enthroned with Saints by Baldovinetti, over
whose delicate cypresses we could look through the jail window to the lofty
pine woods and the snowy upper slopes of the Alpine valley. In an inner room,
past a Madonna by Cima da Conegliano, Filippino’s Adoration of the Child
and the Nativity with Saints ferome and Hilarion by Filippo Lippi, we came
upon the awesome late Pieta by Giovanni Bellini (Fig. 51), the light coming
full through the window on the dead Christ and the unspoken dialogue of
grief between the saints who hold him.

So narrow indeed were the jail cells that in many cases it was almost impos-
sible to move the pictures so as to obtain a full view of each. They had been
moved unpacked, without any kind of protection save blankets and straw.
This we were later able to prove by photographs made by the Germans them-
selves. It is almost incredible that they survived the trip over Apennines and
Alps under combat conditions as well as they did. Although few were wholly
unscratched, the damage was generally very minor. Several large flecks were
missing from the grisaille surface of the Bellini Pieta, there were two long and
deep scratches across the Baldovinetti Annunciation, small rips in the Signo-
relli Crucifixion, and a large hole clean through the Botticelli Pallas and the
Centaur, luckily in the grass rather than in one of the faces. The Adam and
Eve by Frans Floris was broken in two. What seemed at first, in the half light,
to be irreparable damage to a very large section of the sky in the magnificent
Rubens Return of the Peasants, was found later to be merely a whitish deteriora-
tion of the varnish through exposure.

No complete inventory check could be made that day, so we returned in the
early evening to Bolzano. There, in the meantime, Lieut. Col. }. B. Ward Per-
kins, Colonel DeWald's deputy, had arrived. On the following day, therefore,

{ I'A }

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Colonel Ward Perkins went to San Leonardo to begin the interrogation of
Reidemeister, whom we had not seen, while Rossi, Franco, and I went up the
other valley to Brunico and Campo Tores. Here we found a fantastic situation;
the typical Tyrolean sixteenth century, four-turret manor house, shadowed by
enormous Alpine peaks, was guarded at the same time by Germans, Partisans,
and GI’s from the 85th Division. Yet after the topsy-turvy town of Bolzano,
where the amg provincial commissioner had to plod about the town on foot,
hot, red-faced and dusty, while haughty and glittering SS generals sped past
in motor cars loaded with blondes, we could believe anything.

In the castle we were received by no less a personage than Colonel Langs-
dorff himself (Fig. 52). The executor of the greatest single art-looting operation
in recorded history received us with a certain amount of petulance, as if we
had not really been fulfilling our duty to Art by arriving so late. He had been
expecting us for days, anxious to turn over to us his responsibilities. He made
it clear that he expected not only praise for his idealistic labor in protecting art
but also the deference due his superior rank. I was unable to disillusion him
completely on either score, in spite of one or two determined attempts.

The castle, dry and airy, was an excellent refuge for the works of art, im-
measurably better than the jail at Campo Tures. Most of the pictures arranged
neatly around the walls of the late Gothic rooms were from the collections of
Contini and Finaly. Amusingly enough, the latter were all labeled as coming
from the “Finaly-Acton” collection. Acton, a neighbor of Finaly, is a well-
known English collector, but the Germans had fused him with the Frenchman
Finaly to produce the mythical Finaly-Acton — an “American Jew.” These pic-
tures, also removed without packing, showed extensive minor damage to sur-
faces and frames.

The great masterpieces were all stored outside the castle in a Gothic stable
now used as a garage, perfectly dry and safe, and beautifully packed. These
were the boxes from Poggio a Caiano, Poppi, Dicomano, and Soci. When the
garage doors were unlocked, we looked into the dark interior piled to the ceil-
ing with the stout, Florentine boxes, knowing that within them were the Si.
George of Donatello, the Bacchus of Michelangelo, the Donna Velata of Raph-
ael, and the whole wonderful series torn from the Florentine deposits. So closely
were the cases jammed together that even a count of their number was im-
possible. But on each box was a clean, freshly lettered placard for our benefit:
Kunstwer\e aus Italienischen Staatsbesitz.

During the next few days, Rossi and I made our inventory check while Colo-
nel Ward Perkins and Captain Keller visited the deposits and made their
preliminary interrogations of the Germans, in particular the dry and shifty
Langsdorff and the sleek red-haired Reidemeister. The officials of the Kunst-

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schutz lost some of their polish after a few weeks in the prisoner of war cages
at Ghedi, which in the early days after the surrender were merely enormous
fields enclosed by barbed wire fences with no shelter of any sort against the
blazing sun of the Po valley, and with clumsy sanitary facilities arranged near
the fence in full view of the road. But at Campo Tures their arrogance was still
magnificent.

Rossi’s minute inventory revealed that the pictures, missing from Monta-
gnana, did not appear at all in the Alto Adige or in any of the German lists.
Among them were Lorenzo di Credi’s Self-Portrait, the Bronzino Deposition
from the Uffizi, and the most tragic loss of all, the two little Hercules pictures
by Antonio del Pollaiuolo. To this day none of these pictures has been found,
nor has there been the slightest information as to how they disappeared.

With the exception of three (the Rosa, the Feti, and the Huysum) all had
been in boxes, the only ones in Montagnana, and had been part of the original
deposit in Poggio a Caiano before so much of it had been moved by the Floren-
tines to avoid excessive concentration. The ten pictures apparently were not
among those which General Greiner turned over to Langsdorff in Marano sul
Panaro. They appear neither on his rough inventory nor on the precise Kunst-
schutz list. They were not at Montagnana, however, when Fasola arrived there
in early July, a few days after the Germans had left. Were they taken by Gen-
eral Greiner’s troops and abandoned en route r Are they still in some mountain
hut between Florence and Modena.' Were they dropped into a ravine to
lighten an overloaded truck? Were they removed by local peasants from the
Bossi-Pucci villa after the Germans had left? We do not know and perhaps
we never shall. For the moment these two marvelous little Pollaiuolo paint-
ings have joined the sad company of Signorelli’s burnt School of Pan and the
destroyed frescoes of Mantegna in Padua.

What should be done with these two huge deposits, containing so larcre a
proportion of the artistic heritage of Italy and the world? They could, of
course, be left in the Alto Adige for the Italians to bring back when they were
able. Yet as long as the Allies assumed responsibility for military government
in that area the deposits would have to be constantly guarded to prevent not
only theft but sabotage, especially from SS troops still left wandering about in
the unsettled mountainous region. Such a prolonged commitment, with troops
badly needed elsewhere, was an unsatisfactory solution. The alternative was to
bring everything back to Florence. We were all convinced of the necessity of
restitution to the Florentines at the earliest possible moment. It will be to
Captain Keller's eternal credit that he managed to convince all the authorities
of .\MG Fifth Army of the urgency of the problem, and to enlist their enthusi-
astic cooperation.

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For more than two months Captain Keller remained at the maddening job
o£ arranging and supervising all the details of guarding, packing, and trans-
porting the works of art, in the midst of the unsettled conditions that prevailed
in Bolzano Province during the summer of 1945. To list a quarter of the prob-
lems that beset him and his assistant, T/5 Charles S. Bernholz, Jr., during this
hot summer would fill this book. A twenty-four hour guard was maintained
by Fifth Army soldiers at both deposits during the entire two-month period.
Italians were called in to do the packing. Signor Nicolussi, an assistant from
the Superintendency of Trento, supervised the construction of 109 large crates
at San Leonardo, which had to be built in a stable as there was no room in
the jail. Expert packers from Milan built 46 crates for the pictures and other
objects from the Contini and Finaly collections. Lumber came from captured
German stores, especially released by Fifth Army.

Early in June Captain Keller called again for Rossi and me, and we made
our second trip up from Florence to determine exactly what objects would go
into what cases and make a complete case-by-case numbered inventory to be
used during unloading in Florence. On the way we regretfully left the faithful
Franco with his family in Mantua, his place being taken by Alessandro Olschki,
the son of Comm. Aldo Olschki, the noted rare-book dealer and publisher.
From then until the end of August, when I left Tuscany for good, Sandro
labored cheerfully with us. It seemed to all of us at this time that the only way
to transport the hundreds of heavy cases all the way back to Florence was by
truck, and all our calculations were made with this in mind. In fact we went so
far as to agree on the use of fifty GI trucks for the purpose, and to estimate a
travel time of four days, proceeding at a crawl, with three nights spent on the
road. Captain Keller placed the request for the trucks with Lieutenant Colonel
Toscani (the Major Joppolo of Bell for Adano), and Rossi and I, on our way
back to Florence, were assigned the job of picking our bivouac areas for the
entire convoy.

This was no small task. We had to find places where the trucks could all be
parked under cover, where fifty drivers and their relief, another fifty, plus the
Military Police guards and the officers could eat, sleep, and obtain fresh water.
After careful search in a number of cities and the elimination of many sug-
gestions we decided upon stops at a large factory in a place called Mas Deserta,
just south of Trento, the Cavallerizza of the Ducal Palace in Mantua (with
alternative shelter under the palace arcades in case of rain), and the Bologna
stadium with the adjacent cavalry barracks — inspected by my old assistant
Paul Bleecker, who had for the past month been helping Captain Pinsent in
Bologna.

The deciding factor was the availability of the trucks. Colonel Toscani could

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not let us have them. They were hauling emergency rations to the famished
cities of Turin and Milan, from which they could not be spared. So all plans
were scrapped and Captain Keller began to work out the details of a trip by
rail, since it was hoped that by July rail communications would be restored
between the Alto Adige and Florence. The contents of Campo Tures would
be loaded onto freight cars at the nearby station, and when the train was com-
pletely made up in Brunico, five miles or so away, it would go to Bolzano to
meet another section bringing the San Leonardo load from Merano. Three
trucks were needed at Campo Tures and six at San Leonardo, which was more
than an hour’s drive from the Merano railway station. The completed train
would proceed to Florence as soon as possible, to be met there by trucks from
PBS, which would unload the entire treasure and transport it to the Pitti Palace.

So for the third time Rossi and I, famliar now with every bomb crater in
the road, made our long trip from Florence to Bolzano. Keller had his new
plan all ready down to the last detail, with the efficient collaboration of the
staff of Fifth Army amg. The army commander, Lieut. Gen. Lucian C. Trus-
cott, had even lent his personal plane so that Captain Rust, the administra-
tive officer, might fly to Livorno, pick up a load of fifty fire extinguishers and
get them back to Bolzano in time to be of use during the trip.

Lieut. Col. Elmer N. Holmgreen, the governor of Anzio for the duration
of the famous beachhead, was in command of the train. Maj. Arthur R.
Schmidt, commanding officer of the 630th Anti-Aircraft Battalion, Military
Police, had brought sixty of his men and four officers to guard the shipment,
whose value Rossi estimated at $500,000,000. On Monday, July 16, loading
started simultaneously at San Leonardo and Campo Tures, with Keller super-
vising in the latter deposit and me in the former. I had by far the easier assign-
ment, as the job of moving the heavy sculpture fell to Keller, who had to ob-
tain a wrecker to handle the larger pieces, as well as freight cars with especially
large entrances to accommodate such enormous masses as the Niobe and Pietro
Tacca’s Boar. As I accompanied my first truckload of towering crates, dustproof
and practically waterproof, down the mountain road toward Merano, guarded
by an MP with a glittering helmet, it gave me not only unspeakable personal
satisfaction but a deep pride in the Allied cause when I realized how sharply
this journey contrasted with the manner in which the pictures had come up
the same road (Fig. 53).

By July 20 we were ready. The works of art filled thirteen freight cars. In
addition there were six cars for the guards, spotted throughout the train, a
kitchen car, a passenger and office car, and a flat car carrying the jeeps assigned
to Captain Keller and Colonel Holmgreen. At the last minute it was decided
that someone was needed in Florence to arrange the details of the unload-

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ing procedure, as well as the ceremony in which the works of art were to be
delivered to the people of Florence by General Hume, as head of amg Fifth
Army. The choice fell on me. The trip by car normally took two days, given
the condition of the roads. Sandro and I started off at ten in the morning and
reached Lake Garda about one, speeding along the road carved through the
cliff high over the iridescent lake. At Gardone we made a two-hour stop at
Fifth Army headquarters and then set off again across the valley of the Po and
up into the dark Apennines at night, along Route 64 to Pistoia. In the network
of by-passes and cut-offs surrounding the obliterated village of Marzabotto
we got lost at midnight, and only at four in the morning did we arrive, ex-
hausted, in Florence. At seven we had to begin again, arranging storage space
for the works of art in the Bargello and the Pitti, and transporting workmen
to the Campo di Marte railway yards.

Meanwhile the train had proceeded without major incident. At Trento
there was a long stop because the relief train crew had not arrived, so Captain
Keller, in the words of his report, “made a speech to the Inspector, and told
him that if there was going to be palaver at every stop we would put an MP
with drawn automatic at the back of the engineer and treat him in true SS
manner. There were no stops of any length for some time.” It is worth noting
that this was the first freight train to cross the Po since the Germans blew up
the bridges. Also, by one of the sublime ironies of history, the immense wooden
bridge on which the train carrying the Florentine art treasures crossed the Po
was made of the logs from the forest of Camaldoli.

At two o’clock in the afternoon of July 21 the train arrived in the searing
heat of the Campo di Marte. Unloading began at once, and by the end of the
afternoon twelve truckloads had been safely stowed away in the basement
of the Palazzo Pitti. On Sunday morning we loaded six more trucks. The
first one, flying American and Italian flags, was provided with a huge sign
bearing the Fifth Army insignia and an inscription, worded by Poggi. Others
had suggested such wording as “The Florentine treasures, stolen by the Ger-
mans, are returned by the Americans,” and similar obvious propaganda phrases.
Poggi crossed out all these inscriptions and wrote simply, “Le opere d’arte
fiorentine tornano dall’Alto Adige alia loro sede” (The Florentine works of
art return from the Upper Adige to their home). Nothing more w^as needed
(Fig- 54)-

At eleven-thirty the procession formed. First came a jeep loaded with MP’s;
then “Lucky 13,” well shined and proudly driven by Sandro, carrying Poggi,
Rossi, and me; then Captain Keller’s jeep driven by Bernholz, bearing Keller,
Colonel Holmgreen, and Major Schmidt. Slowly we moved at the head of the
six trucks forming our symbolic convoy around the city to Piazza Donatello,

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from there at a snail’s pace down Via Cav'our and Via Martelli, through crowds
of cheering, even weeping Florentines. By the time the simple procession
reached the Piazza del Duomo, white with marble in the summer sun, High
Mass had let out and the police were holding back the crowds on the steps
of the Duomo.

A wave of applause and cries of “Bravo!” greeted us. From the slender
heights of the campanile of Giotto the great cathedral bells struck twelve as we
moved down the dark cleft of Via Calzaioli, past the majestic figures now re-
placed in their niches in Orsanmichele, into the crowded Piazza della Signoria.
The arches of the Loggia dei Lanzi were filled with Allied and Italian digni-
taries, and the Florentine trumpeters in their mediaeval costumes blew us a
salute inaudible over the shouts of the crowd, as the huge trucks manoeuvred
around to their positions below the bulk of Palazzo Vecchio (Fig. 55). Brief
and moving speeches were delivered by General Hume and the venerable
mayor of Florence, Prof. Gaetano Pieraccini. As the General walked into
Palazzo Vecchio the populace burst into a demonstration the like of which
for sincerity and spontaneity I have seldom witnessed. The people crowded
about him, embracing him, weeping with joy, striving to touch his imiform.

Then it was all over. In the words of Colonel DeWald, our mission in Italy
was accomplished. But day after day the careful job of unloading continued,
all the paintings going to the Pitti and to the Uffizi, all the sculpture being
unloaded into the courtyard of the Bargello. Not a single discrepancy in the
inventory turned up, not an object was damaged. By July 24 the complex
operation, which in addition to the Superintendencies of Florence, of Venice
and of Trento, the Committee of National Liberation, the Italian State Rail-
ways, the MF.w officers of Fifth Army, Emilia, and Tuscany, had in two months
enlisted the aid of no less than ten separate military units of Fifth Army, pbs,
and OSS, was completed. There w'as little more for me to do save write my final
report to the mf.v.v Subcommission on the work of fourteen months of salvage
and repair in Tuscany, now turned over completely to the Italian Government
save only for Lucca and Apuania Provinces.

After so many experiences it was a terrible wrench to leave Florence. On
August 21. as “Lucky 13" took me for the last time up Route 65 and I turned my
head for my last look at the crystal clear form of Brunelleschi’s cupola against
the Tuscan hills I thought of all that we had accomplished since that day, a
little over a year before, when Franco and I entered the city from Poggio Im-
periale under the thunder of the guns.

/ no }

6. Florence, Piazzetta del Rossi, showing Torre dei Mannelli, now restored
the arch or Via de' Bardi, and Torre di Parte Guelta, now totally destroyed

S. The same, and Palazzo del Turco, .-\ugust 1944

II. I'ldiciu c. Via I’or S. Man.i, showing Tiiitc ik-gli Amide

acemen

21. Sunning fragments of the polyptych (in the foreground can be seen
the Pontormo panel from the church at Pontorme)

IK

•<

Pisa. Campo Sa
Detail sho'.v irit: ^

i.mik- I lu' same, Di'ccmlicr H)4|, showini; niiiis of cainjiaiiilc and

damaj^cd loll aisle of eliiireh

__ ■M^.asSI 't — fat '^'^

46 . Cortona, S. Domenico. Fra .Angelico. Madonna Enthroned with Saints
triptych. December 6, 1944

■- .i

APPENDIX

SECTION I

IN T ACT J\TONU MEN T S

The following monuments were found to be either intact, so slightly damaged
as to make intervention by the mfaa office unnecessary, or under repair by local
authorities. The works of art they contained were likewise intact. It should
be borne in mind that under wartime conditions all the monuments of interest
could not possibly be visited.

ANGHIARI (Arezzo)

Badia

Collegiata

Palazzo Communale
S. Agostino

ANTELLA (Florence)

S. Caterina
Parish church
Villa Mondeggi
ARCETRI (Florence)

Villa Capponi
Torre del Gallo
Villa La Gallina
Villa Curonia
ARCIDOSSO (Grosseto)

S. Maria delle Grazie
Palazzo Sforza
Rocca

AREZZO (Arezzo)

SS. Annunziata
Palazzo Communale
ARTIMINO (Florence)

Villa Medici
ASCIANO (Siena)

Collegiata
S. Agostino
S. Francesco
S. Sebastiano
Palazzo Tolomci
Abbey of Rofeno
B.\DIA A ISOLA (Siena)

Parish church

BADIA S. SALVATORE (Siena)
.Abbey church

B.ADIA TED.ALDA (.Arezzo)
Parish church

B.AGXO A RIPOLI (Florence)
Villa Gli Olmi

BARG A (Lucca)

S. Francesco
BELC.ARO (Siena)

Casde

BELLOSGUARDO (Florence)

Villa Belvedere al Saraceno
Villa Roti-Michelozzi
BIBBIENA (Arezzo)

Pieve

S. Lorenzo
Madonna del Sasso
Palazzo Dovizi
BROZZI (Florence)

S. Donnino

BUONCONVENTO (Siena)

S. Pietro e Paolo
Palazzo Farnetano
CAFAGGIOLO (Florence)

Villa xMedici

C.ALENZANO (Florence)

S. Donato

CA-MALDOLI (.Arezzo)

Convent

Sacred Hermitage
CAMIGLIANO (Pisa)

Villa Torrigiani

CAPRESE MICHELANGELO (Arezzo)
Palazzo Communale
C.AREGGI (Florence)

Villa Medici
C.ARRAR.A (Apuania)

Cathedral
Carmine
S. Francesco

House of Emmanuele Repetti
Castello Malaspina
Museo Luna

{ 113 }

APPENDIX I

CASAVECCHIA (Florence)

Villa Antinori
CASEROTTA (Florence)

Villa Canucci

CASTELFIORENTINO (Florence)

S. Francesco

Oratory of the Visitation
Madonna della Tosse
Chiesa delle Monache
GASTELLO (Florence)

S. Michele
VUla Corsini
Villa Pozzino
CASTELNUOVO DELL’

ABATE (Siena)

S. Antimo

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO (Arezzo)
Collegiata
Gesu

CASTIGLIONE IN GARFAGNANA
(Lucca)

Parish church
Casde

CERBAIA (Florence)

Casa Bandinelli

CERRETO GUIDI (Florence)

Parish church
Villa Medici

CERTALDO (Florence)

Cathedral

SS. Michele e Jacopo
Palazzo Pretorio
CERTOMONDO (Arezzo)

Parish church
CHIANCIANO (Siena)

Chiesetta della Morte
Palazzo Communale
CHIUSDIXO (Siena)

House of S. Galgano
CHIUSI (Arezzo)

Cathedral

COLLE VAL D’ ELSA (Siena)
Cathedral
S. Caterina
S. Maria Canonica
S. Pietro

House of Arnolfo di Cambio
Hospital
Museo Civico
Palazzo Campana
Palazzo Pretorio

Palazzo Vescovile
COLLODI (Pistoia)

Villa Garzoni
COMPIOBBI (Florence)

Villa Poggio alle Palme
CORTONA (Arezzo)

Cathedral
S. Domenico
Gesu
S. Marco
S. Margherita
S. Niccolo
Loggia del Grano
Etruscan Walls
Palazzo Pretorio
Palazzone
Casa Berettini
CUNA (Siena)

Parish church
Castle

DIECLMO (Lucca)

Parish church

FALTIGNANO (Florence)

S. Bartolommeo
FARNETA (Lucca)

Certosa

FIESOLE (Florence)

Cathedral
S. Domenico
S. Francesco
Museo Bandini
Museo Archeologico
Roman theater
Villa Medici
FIGLINE (Florence)

Collegiata
Palazzo Pretorio
FI\ IZZANO (Apuania)

Parish church
FLORENCE

All monuments not listed as damaged
have been inspected and found intact.
GALLICANO (Lucca)

Parish church
GAMBASSI (Florence)

S. Maria in Chianni
GRASSINA (Florence)

^ ilia L'L’golino
Villa Signorini
Castel Montauto
GROPINA ( .\rezzo)

{ IM }

INTACT MONUMENTS

Parish church
GROPPOLI (Pistoia)

S. Michele

GROSSETO (Grosseto)

Cathedral
S. Pietro

Museo Communale
Rocca

GROTTI (Siena)

Castello Nerli
LA FOCE (Lucca)

Villa Foce

LA GATTAIOLA (Lucca)

Parish church
Villa Gattaiola
LA LOGGIA (Florence)

Villa Salviati
LA PIETRA (Florence)

Villa Acton
Villa Capponi
Villa Landau

LASTRA A SIGNA (Florence)

Villa Lotteringhi della Stufa
LECORE (Florence)

S. Pietro
S. Angelo

LEGNAIA (Florence)

S. Angelo
LE ROSE (Siena)

ViUa Antinori
LIGNANO (Florence)

S. Giusto

LIVORNO (Livorno)

S. Caterina
Fortezza Vecchia
Sanctuary of Montenero
LUCCA

All monuments not listed as damaged
have been inspected and found intact.
LUCIGNANO (Arezzo)

Collegiata
S. Francesco
Museum

Torre del Cassero

MAGLIANO IN TOSCANA (Grosseto)
S. Giovanni Battista
Annunziata
Palazzo dei Priori
Casa Checco il Bello
MANTIGNANO (Florence)

Parish church

MARCIOLA (Florence)

S. Maria

MARLIA (Lucca)

Villa Reale
Villa Grabau
Villa Paolozzi

MASSA MARITTIMA (Grosseto)
Cathedral
Casde
Museum
Palazzo Pretorio
Porta Senese
MENSANO (Siena)

S. Giovanni Battista
S. Sebastiano
MENSOLA (Florence)

S. Martino

MIRANSfJ (Florence)

S. Lorenzo

MOLINO NUOVO (Pistoia)

Villa Bellavista
MONSUMMANO (Pistoia)

Parish church
MONTALCINO (Siena)

Cathedral
S. Agostino
S. Antonio
S. Caterina
S. Egidio
Osservanza
Museum

Palazzo Communale
Rocca

MONTECATINI (Pistoia)

Parish church

MONTEFOLLONICA (Grosseto)
S. Leonardo

MONTEGUFONI (Florence)

Villa Sitwell

MONTELUPO (Florence)

Villa Medici

MONTEAIARCIANO ( Arezzo)
Parish church

MONTEMERANO (Grosseto)
Parish church

MONTE OLIVETO (Florence)
Villa Guicciardini
MONTE OLIVETO MAGGIORE
( Siena)

Monastery

{ 115 }

APPENDIX 1

MONTEPULCIANO (Siena)
Cathedral
S. Agnese
S. Agostino
S. Biagio

S. Maria delle Grazie
S. Maria dei Servi
Museo Civico
Pinacoteca Communale
Palazzo Angioletti
Palazzo Communale
Palazzo Contucci
Palazzo Ricci
Palazzo Tarugi
MONTERCHI (Arezzo)

Cemetery chapel
MONTERIGGIONI (Siena)
Mediaeval walls

MONTE S. SAVING (Arezzo)

S. Agostino
S. Chiara

Loggia del Mcrcato
Palazzo Communale
MONTEVARCHI (Arezzo)
Collegiata

MONTICCHIELLO (Siena)

Parish church
MONTICELLO (Siena)

S. Pietro

MONTISI (Siena)

Parish church

NAVE A ROVE2ZANO (Florence)
Villa Le Sentinelle
ONANO (Grosseto)

S. Croce

Madonna del Piano
Mediaeval houses
Palazzo Madama
ORBETELLO (Grosseto)

Cathedral
Museo Etrusco
Etruscan walls
PAGANICO (Grosseto)

S. Michele
Torre Grossetana
Mediaeval walls
PASSIGNANO (Florence)

Badia

PERETOLA (Florence)

S. Maria

PESCIA (Pistoia)

Cathedral
S. Francesco
Palazzo Galeotti
Palazzo Pretorio
PIENZA (Siena)

Palazzo Ammanati
Palazzo Vescovile
Palazzo Piccolomini
Palazzo Communale
PISA (Pisa)

Torre Campana
Palazzo della Carovana
Baptistery

Almost all the other monuments of Pisa
were damaged.

PISTOIA (Pistoia)

S. Andrea

S. Bartolommeo in Pantano
S. Francesco
S. Maria delle Grazie
S. Paolo

Ospedale del Ceppo
Biblioteca Forteguerra
Vescovado

Palazzo Communale
Palazzo Pretorio
Palazzo Rospigliosi
Torre di Catilino
PITIGLIANO (Grosseto)

Cathedral
Etruscan wails
Municipio
Palazzo Orsini
POGGIBONSI (Siena)

Collegiata
La Magione
Villa Montelonti
PONTE A ELSA (Florence)

Villa La Bastia

PONTE A GREVE (Florence)

Villa L’AcciauoIo
PONTE-LUNGO (Pistoia)

Villa Bocchi Bianchi
PONTREMOLI (Pisa)

S. Francesco
Mediaeval gates
POPPI (Arezzo)

Chiesa delle Monache
S. Fedele

Madonna del Morbo
Palazzo Pretorio

{ 116 }

INTACT MONUMENTS

POPPIENA (Arezzo)

Badia

PRATO (Florence)
Cathedral
S. Domenico
S. Francesco
Madonna delle Career!
Casde

PRATOLINO (Florence)
Villa DemidofiE
QUARTO (Florence)

Villa Di Quarto
RADICOFANI (Siena)
Castle

REMOLE (Florence)

S. Giovanni Battista
REMOLUZZO (Florence)
S. Maria

RIGNALLA (Florence)

S. Maria

RIGOLI (Florence)

Parish church

ROCCA D’ORCIA (Siena)
S. Egidio

ROMENA (Arezzo)

Pieve

Casde

ROMOLA (Florence)

S. Maria

ROSANO (Florence)
Convent and church
RUBALLA (Florence)

S. Giorgio
SALA (Florence)

S. Lucia

SALTOCCHIO (Lucca)
Villa Bernardini-Querci
S. CASCIANO (Florence)
Villa Corsini (Le Corti)
S. CASSIANO (Pisa)

S. Giuseppe

S. COLOMBANO (Siena)
Parish church
Villa

S. GALGANO (Siena)
Abbey

S. GENNARO (Lucca)
Parish church
S. GIMIGNANO (Siena)

S. Jacopo
S. Pietro

Vecchia Cancelleria
Ospedale S. Fina
Palazzo Pratellesi
Palazzo del Toro
S. GIOVANNI D’ASSO (Siena)

Hospital

S. GIOVANNI IN SUGANA (Florence)
Parish church

S. MARIA DEL GIUDICE (Lucca)

Pieve Nuova
Pieve Vecchia

S. MARTINO ALLA PALMA
(Florence)

Parish church
S. MINTATO (Pisa)

S. Domenico
S. Francesco
Palazzo Communale
Palazzo Formichini
S. QUIRICO D’ORCIA (Siena)

Medieval walls
S. Maria

S. SEPOLCRO (Arezzo)

Cathedral

Palazzo Communale
S. Francesco
S. STEFANO (Lucca)

Villa Sardi
Villa Frediana
Villa Massoni
Villa Orsetd
Villa Orsini
SATURNIA (Grosseto)

Parish church
Casde

Museo Etrusco
Walls

SCANDICCI (Florence)

S. Bartolo in Tuto
S. Maria a Greve
SEGROMIGNO (Lucca)

Villa Manzi

SETTIGNANO (Florence)

Chiesa dei Monaci
Misericordia
S. Romano
La Vannella
SIENA (Siena)

All monuments not listed as damaged
are intact.

{ 117 }

APPENDIX II

SIGNA (Florence)

S. Giovanni Battista
S. Mauro

SINALUNGA (Arezzo)
CoUegiata
S. Croce
S. Lucia
Palazzo Pretorio
SORANA (Grosseto)

S. Pietro
Palazzo Orsini
SOVANA (Grosseto)

Cathedral
S. Maria

Palazzo Aldobrandesco
Palazzo del Monte
Palazzo Pretorio
STAGGIA (Siena)

S. Maria
STIA (Arezzo)

Parish church
S. Maria delle Grazie
STRADA (Arezzo)

Parish church

TORRE A CONA (Florence)
Villa Rossi

TORRE DEL CASTELLANO

(Florence)

Casde

TORRITA (Siena)

S. Fiora

Madonna della Neve
TOSA (Grosseto)

Etruscan ruins
TREBBIO (Florence)

Medici casde

VALLOMBROSA (Florence)
Monastery

VILLABASILICA (Lucca)
Parish church

VILLAMAGNA (Florence)
S. Romolo

VOLOGNANO (Florence)
Villa Poggio a Luco
VULCI (Grosseto)

Aqueduct
Montalto di Castro
VOLTERRA (Pisa)

S. Agostino
S. Francesco
S. Girolamo
S. Giusto
S. Michele
Cappella Sergardi
Fortress

Palazzo Pretorio
Palazzo dei Priori
Walls and gates

SECTION II

DAMAGED .^MONUMENTS AND THEIR REPAIRS

A considerable number of monuments of minor importance have been omitted
from this list. Only the most summary indications of the character and contents
of the buildings have been given.

ALTOPASCIO (Lucca)

S. Jacopo

Important Romanesque transept fayade.
Remainder of church modern. Shell struck
close to large marble lion at upper corner
of fayade, pushing it out of place. Re-
placed.

AREZZO f.\rezzo)

Cathedral

Trecento Gothic building, with rich series

of works of art, notably Gothic tombs,
Della Robbia reliefs, the Magdalen by
Piero della Francesca, and ceiling frescoes
and stained glass by Guglielmo di Mar-
cillat.

Shell holes in roof, ten per cent to reset;
broken windows. Repairs completed Feb-
ruary 15, 1945.

Badia

Fine Cinquecento church by Vasari with

{ ns }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

important Renaissance cloister attributed
to Giuliano da Maiano (Figs. 44-45).
Direct hit by a stick of heavy caliber
bombs completely destroyed two sides of
the cloister, both stories. Concussion
smashed most of the roof tiles over church,
and rain water seeped through the vaults.
By October the church was awash.

Roof of church completely retiled. All
rubble cleared from cloister and all archi-
tectural fragments sorted out. One leaning
column of top story of cloister brought
back into line by tie rod and screw, re-
constructing the vault above. Twenty per
cent of roof timber of cloister replaced.
Remaining two sides of cloister completely
reroofed, largely with new tiles. Work
completed in May, and monument out of
danger. It is possible to reconstruct the
cloister completely. Altarpieces, decora-
tions, and Bartolommeo della Gatta
fresco have not suffered. Three lunettes
by Angiolo di Lorcntino detached from
cloister and brought to safety. Enormous
Vasari painting of Banquet of Ahasuerus
removed from ruins of cloister and
brought to museum, almost unscratched.

S. Bartolommeo

Unimportant mediaeval church.

Heavy damage to roof, eighty per cent to
reconstruct; facade badly cracked. Work
completed March 30, 1945.

S. Bernardo

Small church, built on ruins of Roman
arena. Contained the only known frescoes
by Marco da Montepulciano, and fresco
by Bartolommeo della Gatta. Porch con-
tained earliest preserved fresco by Giorgio
Vasari.

Church unroofed and partially demolished
by heavy caliber bombs. It seemed useless
to try to save the structure itself, and
work was limited to detaching the en-
dangered frescoes.

S. Domenico

Gothic church with frescoes by Trecento
Aretine masters.

Roof largely disarranged by blast; twenty-
five per cent of tiles to replace, and prac-

tically all to reset. Interior frescoes already
beginning to show effects of dampness.
Work completed January 15, 1945.

S. Francesco

Gothic church with fresco series of first
importance.

Minor but widespread roof damage, with
consequent danger to frescoes of Piero
della Francesca; fifteen per cent of tiles
to replace. Work completed May 20, 1945.

S. Marta in Gradi

Good Cinquecento church rebuilt by Bar-
tolommeo Ammanati. Madonna del Soc-
corso, by Andrea della Robbia. Fine
Cinquecento gilded and painted organ.
All works of art intact.

Widespread blast damage to roof and to
fine wooden ceiling. Twenty-five per cent
of tiles to replace. Windows damaged. All
damage repaired May 27, 1945.

S. Maria delle Grazie
Slight roof damage by blast and flying
fragments to loggia by Benedetto da
Maiano. .^11 damage repaired December
30, 1944.

Piece

Romanesque church of first importance.
Widespread blast damage to roof; seventy
windows broken, three per cent of roof
timbers and thirty per cent of tiles to re-
place. Effects of continuous rains already
felt in ancient and fragile interior. All
damage to roof repaired May 18, 1945, but
still impossible to close the windows.
Great altarpiece by Pietro Lorenzetti taken
to safety in Florence.

S. Sebastiano

Uninteresting church badly wrecked by
bombs. Fine Enthroned Madonna fresco
by Lorentino d’Andrea had to be detached
from threatened wall.

House of Petrarch

Trecento house in which Petrarch was
born, completely rebuilt in Quattrocento,
with fine, two-story loggia.

Half destroyed by bombs. Repairs to re-
maining part, fifty per cent of roof to

i 119 }

APPENDIX II

rebuild. Demolition of endangered ex-
ternal walls, about twenty per cent of
total surface. Reconstruction of walls for
consolidation about ten per cent of sur-
face. Repairs to roof completed, but rest
of work turned over to Italian Govern-
ment; now completely reconstructed.

House of Vasari

Sumptuous interiors, frescoed and stuc-
coed by Giorgio Vasari for his own resi-
dence.

Shell damage to roof, five per cent to re-
place and fifteen per cent to reset. Cracks
in walls. Repairs completed February 20,
1945. Frescoes by Vasari intact.

Palazzo Altucci

Interior of this fine Gothic house half
destroyed by bombs. Corresponding half
of fagade pulled down by British engi-
neering unit without warning or permis-
sion. Remaining half to be consolidated
and partly reroofed. Work completed by
the end of July 1945.

Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo
Trecento palace.

Half destroyed by bombs; in remaining
portion fifteen per cent of roof to recon-
struct and thirty per cent of new tiles to
lay. Roof repairs, consolidation of masonry,
and construction of a supporting spur for
fagade completed July 13, 1945.

AULLA (Apuania)

5 . Caprasio

Heavy damage to roof and left wall.

BADIA A RIPOLI (Florence)

S. Bartolommeo

Eleventh century church remodeled in
Cinquecento. Works of art, chiefly by
Mannerist and Baroque minor masters, all
intact.

Roof damaged by shells, to reset with five
per cent new tiles. Some damage to
masonry. Ail repairs completed.

BADIA A SETTIMO (Florence)

Former Abbey Church of S. Salvatore
See text. pp. 61-62, and figs. 22-24. Ger-
mans blew up campanile and Torre del

Colombaione, destroying completely the
left aisle of the nave for three-quarters
of its length, the room adjacent to the
chapel of S. Quintino, and the great
Gothic relief on the Colombaione, as well
as carrying away or smashing most of the
roof tiles. Two bays of cloister have fallen
as a result of artillery damage. Relief on
Torre del Colombaione completely de-
stroyed.

All rubble of campanile has been ex-
cavated, uncovering the plan. Approxi-
mately one meter of campanile remains
standing. A plaster cast of the top of the
campanile has been taken in order to
make reconstruction possible. Walls have
been erected to close off completely the
left aisle. Nave completely reroofed, so
that mediaeval painted ceiling is out of
danger. No damage to the Della Robbia
medallions in chancel. Chapel of S. Quin-
tino also walled off and reroofed. Con-
solidation of frescoes of Giovanni da San
Giovanni completed. Left aisle recon-
structed by Italian Government.

BARGA (Lucca)

Cathedral

Fine Romanesque church, badly restored
after earthquake of 1920. Magnificent
pulpit of 1233 attributed to Guido da
Como. All works of art intact, save for
two or three fragmentation scratches on
pulpit.

Almost complete destruction or dislocation
of roofing surface. Several shell holes in
roof and walls. Work of reroofing com-
pleted.

S. Annunziata

Church lined with rich wooden carved
and gilded Baroque altars in local style.
Heavy shell damage to roof; had to be at
least half replaced. All roof repairs com-
pleted.

Chiesa del Conservatorio di S. Elisabetta
Unimportant church with large Della
Robbia relief.

Heavy shell damage to roof, now com-
pletely repaired.

{ no }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

Chiesa del Crocifisso

Church with interesting local Baroque
wood-carved choir stalls.

Roof mostly gone. Vaults collapsed.

S. Rocco

Damage to roof, windows, and doors.

Palazzo Pretoria

Early Quattrocento building.

Heavy damage to roof, now repaired.

BIVIGLIANO (Florence)

S. Romolo

Unimportant church with fine terra cotta
altarpiece by school of Andrea della
Robbia.

Considerable roof damage, repaired De-
cember 1944.

BRANCOLI (Lucca)

S. Giorgio (Pieve)

Fine Lucchese Romanesque church in
spectacular posidon, with splendid Roman-
esque pulpit.

Heavy damage to roof by shellfire, ap-
proximately seventy per cent of material
to replace. Slight damage to pulpit and
none to Della Robbia relief of St. George.
Roof already completely repaired. Re-
pairs to damaged masonry and architec-
tural details completed by Italian Govern-
ment.

BROZZI
S. Andrea

Mediaeval church with Quattrocento cam-
panile. Annunciation by Giovanni dal
Ponte and Crucifix by Giovanni di Fran-
cesco removed to Florence for restoration.
Campanile and apse mined and utterly
destroyed by Germans. Roof dies largely
fractured and blown away.

Apse, triumphal arch, and base of cam-
panile rebuilt in order to close the church.
Roof completely repaired. Works of art,
especially fresco of Baptism by Ghirlan-
daio, undamaged by war. Campanile now
reconstructed by Italian Government.

CALCI (Pisa)

Certosa

Vast, late Baroque monastery, with rich
Settecento sculptural and pictorial decora-

tion. Used as deposit for most precious
works of art from Pisa.

Hundreds of shell hits throughout, ruin-
ing the roof and damaging marble and
masonry. All roof damage repaired almost
at once in order to save interior from
damage by rain water. Repairs to masonry
yet to be done.

CAMAIORE (Lucca)

S. Biagio di Lombrici
Thirteenth century church.

Roof considerably damaged.

S. Michele

Eleventh century church. Heavy damage
to roof, now repaired.

Museo d'Arte Sacra

Contains important works of mediaeval
and Renaissance liturgical art, all intact.
Considerable damage to roof and walls.

CANDELI (Florence)

S. Andrea

Interesting Rococo church.

Roof over central aisle gone completely,
and partly destroyed over side aisles and
chapels. Damage also to walls. Wall re-
pairs completed and roof rebuilt.

CANIPAROLA (Apuania)

Villa Malaspina

Sumptuous late Baroque villa in Ligurian
style, with rich decorative frescoes of
illusionistic architecture.

Roof almost completely destroyed, en-
dangering frescoed halls.

CAPRAIA (Florence)

S. Stefano

Romanesque church, unimportant save as
key to one of the most beaudful hill towns
of Arno valley.

Heavy damage due to continuous shelling
for a month. Roof almost completely col-
lapsed, as well as certain parts of walls.
Heavy damage to campanile. Repairs to
walls and roof completed under amg; cam-
panile dismanded and rebuilt by Italian
Government.

CARDOSO (Apuania)

S. Maria Assunta

Considerable damage to roof and marble
altar.

{ 121 }

APPENDIX 11

CASCIA DI REGGELLO (Florence)

S. Pietro

Magnificent early Romanesque church, re-
lated to Gropina, Romena, Strada, Stia,
and Santa Maria in Chianni. Romanesque
capitals intact.

Shell damage to portico and to apse. Work
completed and apse liberated from ad-
jacent structures.

CASOLE D’ELSA (Siena)

5 . Maria Assunta

Interesting Trecento church, with im-
portant works of art.

Roof almost completely blown off by shell-
fire, including damage to some of the
beams. Fragmentation damage sustained
by Della Robbia school altarpiece, Segna
di Bonaventura fresco, and two Gano da
Siena tombs. Superintendent waited eight
months before making a preventivo, which
was later held up and never financed.
Superintendent gave orders May lo, 1945,
to suspend work, but parroco went ahead
anyway, and church is now completely re-
roofed and out of danger. Altarpiece by
Andrea di Niccolo and fragments of dam-
aged sculpture collected by priest and
stored in his house.

GASTELLO (Florence)

Villa Reale

Badly restored villa, with superb Mannerist
garden designed by Tribolo. Garden
largely intact.

Roof badly damaged by shellfire, 130 sq.
meters destroyed, 900 sq. meters discon-
nected. Holes in facade, one demolished
ceiling. Repairs to roof and masonry com-
pleted end of May 1945.

Villa La Petraia

Castle, reconstructed by Brunelleschi and
Buontalenti. Fine Baroque frescoes by
Volterrano in courtyard.

Many shell hits throughout the building,
devastating the roof, and ruining walls,
ceiling, drapery, furniture, architectural
details, etc. Roof completely repaired. Re-
pairs proceeding to interior and to archi-
tectural details. Volterrano frescoes lucki-
ly undamaged.

CASTELNUOVO DI GARFAGNANA
(Lucca)

Collegiata

Church often rebuilt. Fine Renaissance
facade (1504), rich series of Baroque altars
with spiral columns. Assumption by Sand
di Tito destroyed.

Enormous bomb damage to roof, vaults
pierced in several places, left lateral chapel
demolished; all damage repaired by Italian
Government with funds provided by amg.

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO (Arezzo)
Collegiata

Church completely rebuilt early nineteenth
century. Substructions used as deposit for
all important works of art in town.
Extensive blast damage to roof; to be
seventy per cent reset. Work completed
early August. No damage to great Ma-
donna by Segna di Bonaventura, to Bar-
tolommeo della Gatta altarpiece, or to
treasure.

5 . Agostino

Early Trecento church.

Roof destroyed, about 35 sq. meters. Re-
pairs completed early in August.

S. Lazzo

Small, abandoned Trecento church, with
interesting frescoes by Sienese masters.
Three-quarters of roof destroyed; much of
timber to replace. Roof completely re-
paired, and large Crucifixion fresco con-
solidated.

CERBAIOLO (Arezzo)

S. Paolo

Small thirteenth century church in mag-
nificent location on desolate mountainside.
Mined and half destroyed by the Ger-
mans. In process of reconstruction by the
Italian Government.

CHIUSDINO (Siena)

Chapel of Monte Siepi
Circular Romanesque church.

Shell destroyed 20 sq. meters of roof,
smashing beams, damaging masonry as
well. .\11 damage repaired; frescoes by
.Lmbrogio Lorenzetti school intact.

f 122 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

COLLE VAL D’ELSA (Siena)

S. Agostino

Church by Antonio da Sangallo il Vecchio,
much restored. Works of art by Taddeo di
Bartolo, Bronzino, Cigoli, and Baccio da
Montelupo all intact.

CORTONA (Arezzo)

S. Francesco

Thirteenth century Gothic church.
Damage to roof timbers of one bay, now
repaired.

S. Maria del Calcinaio
Masterpiece of Francesco di Giorgio.
Damage to roof, about 400 sq. meters had
to be redone. Stonework on the outside in
bad state. Roof of the cupola recovered in
lead; much of architectural detail badly
crumbled by infiltrations of water; re-
stored by Italian Government.

5 . Maria Nuova

Fine Cinquecento church on Greek cross
plan, now attributed to Vasari. Altar-
pieces by Empoli and others.

A few shaken roof tiles permitted water
to enter roof of right transept; roof beams
became water-logged, water seeped into
one of four piers upholding cupola, froze,
and started splitting the pier. Whole sand-
stone pier in shattered condition and
stability of entire monument endangered.
The two small upholding arches have
been very well shored by a dense structure
of beams which carries much of the
weight of the cupola. Lumini erected a
brick structure topped with a reinforced
concrete collar which will take all the
weight of the cupola, and permit the sub-
stitution of the pier. Work being com-
pleted by Italian Government.

Palazzo Casali

Often restored mediaeval town hall.

Large section of interior destroyed by
German mines. Work of reconstruction
and restoration completed by Italian Gov-
ernment, with renovated Museo Civico.

EMPOLI (Florence)

Collegiata

Church with green and white marble

Florentine Romanesque facade and stately
Settecento interior by Ruggini (Figs. 28-
29).

Campanile blown up by Germans, de-
stroying completely in its fall the museum,
the rear half of the nave roof and ceiling,
half of the cloister, and the rear half of
the right nave wall with the lateral chapels
and right transept. Rubble was piled in a
tangle of beams and stone throughout the
nave. The baptistery and adjacent corridor
were largely destroyed, but magnificent
Quattrocento font salvaged intact.

Right wall with lateral chapels and tran-
sept reconstructed, incorporating original
capitals, in order to close the church. All
new roof beams in place. Church reroofed
under amg; Baroque ceiling restored by
Italian Government. Five pictures from
the museum (an Empoli, two Cigoli, a
Macchietti, and a Botticini) were com-
pletely smashed to bits. The great Masolino
fresco had been detached and taken to
Florence, where it is now intact. All
other works of art saved. Campanile in
process of reconstruction by Italian Gov-
ernment and local authorities.

S. Agostino

Gothic church with important works of
art.

Campanile blown up by Germans, de-
molishing entire apse, plus triumphal
arch, left lateral chapel, and last two
arches of left nave arcade. Roof beams in
this location fell, and roof tiles were
largely blown away or fractured through-
out the church.

Destroyed arches and triumphal arch com-
pletely reconstructed to permit closing of
church. Destroyed apse and left chapel
walled off. Destroyed beams replaced and
church completely reroofed with new
tiles. Recently discovered frescoes by Ma-
solino and Stamina have suffered from
dampness during winter. Destroyed por-
tions now completely reconstmcted by
Italian Government.

S. Maria al Petroio

Roof blown away completely, with only a
few beams left. Reconstruction completed.

i 123 }

APPENDIX II

FIESOLE (Florence)

S. Alessandro

Sixth century church, often restored. Six-
teen Roman columns of oriental marble.
Panel by Gerino da Pistoia.

Roof severely damaged by shellfire; thirty
per cent to reconstruct and fifty per cent
to reset. Cracks in wall of apse. Rubble
cleared and roof repairs completed. Res-
toration proceeding under Italian Gov-
ernment.

S. Ansano

Damage by shellfire to walls and roof.
Work completed, May 3, 1945; campanile
and portico still to be reconstructed.

Badia Piesolana

Romanesque fagade embedded in mag-
nificent Quattrocento church formerly at-
tributed to Brunelleschi. Interior and all
works of art intact. Shell damage to roof,
particularly to fifteenth century loggia.
Work completed September 15, i 945 -

FIGLINE (Florence)

5 . Francesco

Gothic church with important frescoes.
Explosion of a munitions train in neigh-
boring freight yard caused heavy damage
to roof and bent facade outward. Rain
began to fall on frescoes of Francesco di
Antonio and of school of Botticelli.
Fagade demolished down to level of fres-
coes and rebuilt; 250 sq. meters of roof
rebuilt and 500 sq. meters reset. Work fin-
ished January 1945.

Maria 55 . del Ponterosso

Damage to roof through shelling. About

300 sq. meters redone.

FLORENCE (see map, following p. 140)
55 . Apostoli

Eleventh century church, heavily re-
stored. Works of art intact.

Widespread damage to roof tiles due to
explosion. Work completed March 3 ^>
1945.

Badia

Gothic church with fine octagonal cam-
panile, and superb portal by Benedetto da

Rovezzano. Interior remodeled in 1627.
Works of art intact, including Vision of
St. Bernard by Filippino Lippi (in de-
posit).

La Calza

Small Trecento church, remodeled. Works
of art intact, including Crucifix by Lo-
renzo Monaco and Last Supper by Fran-
ciabigio.

Shell holes in roof, damaging 35 sq. meters
of tiles. Repairs completed October 30,
1944.

Carmine

Shell holes in roof of church and cloister;
broken windows had to be closed at once
as church was awash with rain. Work
completed February 1945. Masaccio and
Masolino frescoes unharmed, though
danger from dampness was feared.
Gentie cleaning of this great fresco series
has brought to light new beauties of sur-
face and detail.

5 . Croce

Gothic church of universal importance.
One shell hole, and other damage to roof;
many windows broken. All repairs com-
pleted in December 1944- Recent survey
has disclosed that roof timbers are in a
dangerous condition throughout, due to
extreme age, and that enormous labors
will be necessary to assure the stability of
the roof. All frescoes, sculpture, altar-
pieces. illuminated manuscripts, and other
works of art intact. Removal of large
Cinquecento altarpicces for cleaning has
disclosed considerable sections of Or-
cagna’s Last Judgment, w'hose surface,
though hacked aw'ay in strips for altar-
pieces, is remarkably fresh w’here pre-
served.

5 . Felice

Small Gothic church, with splendid Quat-
trocento facade by Michelozzo. Works of
art intact.

Shell holes in roof, 200 sq. meters to re-
set. Work completed.

{ 124 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

S. Eelicita

Church rebuilt in eighteenth century by
Ruggini.

Roof damaged by explosions, ceiling dam-
aged, windows and door frames discon-
nected and destroyed; tombstones cracked
and broken. Roof completely repaired;
repairs to smashed doors and windows
completed under amg. Pontormo altar-
piece (in deposit) and frescoes in Capponi
chapel intact, with all other works of art.

S. Frediano

Pretentious Baroque church.

Roof and dome damaged by mines and
shellfire. Most of roof and many large
windows to repair. Work completed April
30, 1945. Decorative frescoes intact,

S. Jacopo sopr Arno

Twelfth century church with Rococo in-
terior.

Fine eighteenth century ceiling frescoes
by Meucci completely destroyed through
explosions; 50 sq. meters of roof to re-
place and 150 to rework. Repairs to roof
completed April 30, 1945.

S. Lorenzo

Brunelleschi’s finest church, with works
of art of universal importance. Both Sa-
grestia Vecchia and Medici Chapel escaped
damage. Works of Donatello were well
protected. Michelangelo statues removed
to Torre a Cona. Filippo Lippi’s Annun-
ciation removed to Oliveto.

Damage to roof and windows by shellfire
(seven direct hits); 150 sq. meters of
roof reset and 35 sq. meters of windows
to repair. Roof repairs completed in Oc-
tober 1944, and windows in June 1945.

S. Maria sopr a Porta
Roof heavily damaged by explosions, many
beams broken. Roof repairs completed
June 1945.

S. Michele

Romanesque church with Cinquecento in-
terior. Works of art intact.

Roof damaged by shells. About ten per
cent of the roofing material had to be re-
placed.

S. Miniato al Monte

Romanesque church of first importance
with Romanesque sculptural decoration,
frescoes by Spinello, Aredno and others,
and chapel with sculpture by Antonio
Rossellino and Luca della Robbia and
paindngs by Baldovinetti and Piero del
Pollaiuolo, Escaped damage to works of
art although shells landed around building
for more than three weeks.

Considerable roof damage; too sq. meters
to reset and some windows to repair. All
repairs completed.

Ognissanti

Church rebuilt in seventeenth century.
Frescoes of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and
Giovanni da San Giovanni intact.

Damage to windows of chapter house
threatening Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper.
Repaired in December 1944.

Orsanmichele

Minor roof and window repairs; completed
January 1945. Gothic building of first
importance. All works of art intact.
Bronzes by Verrocchio, Ghiberti, Nanni
di Banco, Lamberti, Giambologna, and
marble by Donatello now cleaned, re-
paired, and replaced in their niches.

Huge tabernacle of Orcagna was well pro-
tected by construction of sand bags and
brick.

S. Spirito

Renaissance church by Brunelleschi and
others, of first importance.

Roof pierced by shellfire in several places;
tiles shaken and disarranged; 60 sq. meters
replaced and 300 sq. meters reset. Com-
pleted end of October 1944. All works
of art intact (many removed to deposits).

S. Stefano al Ponte

Fine facade, part Romanesque, part
Gothic. Impressive interior reconstructed
in seventeenth century by Pietro Tacca.
Works of art, of secondary importance,
damaged by explosions. Building heavily
damaged by German mines. Roof tiles
blown off completely and beams greatly
weakened. Facade so weakened and

{ 125 }

APPENDIX II

cracked that it had to be demolished piece
by piece for more than half its height,
numbering the stones. Fagade now com-
pletely rebuilt with original stones under
AMG. Roofing now completed.

S. Trinita

Splendid Gothic church with Mannerist
facade by Buontalenti and two chapels
with frescoes of first importance by Lo-
renzo Monaco and Ghirlandaio.

Several holes in roof from flying fragments
of destroyed area. Tracery of great apse
windows severely damaged by explosion.
All windows gone throughout church.
Frescoes in first and second chapel on
left heavily shaken. Some holes in outer
walls. Ghirlandaio and Lorenzo Monaco
frescoes undamaged behind protections of
brick; all other works of art intact.
Church largely reroofed, apse window
tracery dismantled, masonry repaired,
frescoes consolidated; all repairs com-
pleted under amg.

Fountain of Neptune

Colossal fountain by Bartolommeo Am-

manati and others.

Minor repairs to damage caused by mines
in the fountain. Minor repairs to bronze
statues, all intact.

Loggia del Bigallo

Exquisite little Gothic loggia. All movable
works of art evacuated and safe.

Roof damaged by three direct shell hits.
Shell also hit portal by Alberto Arnoldi.
carrying away the head of the Madonna.
Flead slightly damaged, not yet reattached.
All roof repairs completed in October,
1944 -

Palazzo Acciaioli

Rich Cinquecento Lungarno front of pal-
ace and all the rooms behind totalfi de-
stroyed. Small section remaining in Borgo
SS. .A.postoli contains the frescoed room
bv Poccctti. very badly damaged. One wall
has come down entirely, and portions of
the others are mutilated. Standing section
of palace has been reinforced with spurs
of brick and rerooted. First aid measures

have been taken to keep remaining fres-
coes from collapse (Figs. 7-10).

Palazzi Barbadori and Rossi
Impressive thirteenth century houses in
Via Guicciardini.

Facades heavily damaged and out of
plumb, main buildings completely de-
molished. Stonew'ork and beams were sal-
vaged and some work of consolidation
done. Owmer of Palazzo Barbadori has
since rebuilt interior. All of facade of
Palazzo dei Rossi has had to be demol-
ished.

Palazzo Nonfinito

By Buontalenti, Cigoli, Sand di Tito,
Caccini, and Nigetti.

Minor damage to masonry; repaired May

1945 -

Palazzo di Parte Guelfa
Majestic structure by Brunelleschi.

Roof almost completely destroyed, in-
cluding beams. Ceiling by Vasari heavily
damaged, walls inside and out badly
cracked, as well as the vaulting of several
rooms. Loggetta by Vasari heavily dam-
aged. Masonry has been repaired, walls
raised to complete the oculi, and a com-
pletely new timber roof has been built and
covered with tiles; ceiling completely re-
paired,

Palazzo Pitti

Considerable damage to roofs, and win-
dows by shellfire and explosions. No struc-
tural damage: all damage repaired.

Palazzo Vecchio

Root above Salone del Cinquecento re-
ceived several shell hits, and windows
throughout the building smashed. Roof
repairs completed. Leaded glass restored
in Quartiere Monumentale which con-
tains frescoes by Ghirlandaio, Bronzino,
\ asari, Salviati. and others. Frescoes and
ceiling paintings undamaged. Ceiling
paintings in Salone del Cinquecento re-
placed after departure of amg.

Ponte S. Trinita

By Bartolommeo Ammanati with criticism
from Michelangelo; statues of Spring by

{ 126 }

SAN 1-E-ON>^R1>o

OAKiPO TURES
® BROVJI CO

Sketch map showing prob-
able routes followed by
German convoys transport-
ing Florentine works of art
from repositories at Poggio
a Caiano, Montagnana, and
Oliveto to Marano, and
from Poppi, Soci, and Dico-
mano to Forli. Both groups
went successively to Bolo-
gna, Bolzano, and the de-
posits at San Leonardo and
Campo Tures. The return
route by rail under the care
of Fifth Army is also indi-
cated.

•) ■FOPUI

PoiSO ^

FLCRE,MC^^ J Ra-SSO

AREZZO

Map 1. Tuscanv

Map 2. German conAov routes

KEY TO MAP 1. TUSCANY

Capital letters indicate provincial capitals, as FLORENCE; italics indicate major
artistic centers and repositories of first importance, as Poggio a Caiano.

I. Pontremoli

56. Mensanello

III. 'Monte S. Savino

2. Villafranca in Lunigiana

57. Casole d’Elsa

1 12. AREZZO

3. Aulla

58. Badia a Isola

113. Monterchi

4. Fosdmovo

59. Staggia

1 14. Sansepolcro

5. Carrara

60. Certaldo

1 15. Pieve S. Stefano

6. MASSA

61. Poppiano

116. La Verna

7. Seravezza

62. Montegufoni

1 17. Badia Tedalda

8. Pietrasanta

63. OUveto

1 1 8. Sestino

9. Fivizzano

64. Montagnana

1 19. Anghiari

10. Camaiore

65. Montelupo

120. Castighon Fiorentino

II. LUCCA

66. Lastra a Signa

1 21. Cortona

12. PISA

67. Artimino

122. Sinalunga

13. Diecimo

68. Brozzi

123. Torrita

14. S. Cassiano

69. Sesto

124. Montefollonico

15. Barga

70. Quarto

125. 'Monte pulciano

16. Castelnuovo in Garfagnana

71. Careggi

126. Chianciano

17. Castiglione in Garfagnana

72. Pratohno

1 27. Chiusi

18. Camporgiano

73. Badia a Settimo

128. Monticchiello

19. Vagli Sotto

74. Ponte a Grevc

129. Pienza

20. Gallicano

75. S. Martino alia Palma

130. S. Quirico d'Orcia

21. Certosa di Farneta

76. Certosa di Galttzzo

1 31. Castiglione d’Orcia

22. Villa Ford

77. S. Casciano

132. Montalcmo

23. Villabasilica

78. Impruneta

133. 5 . Antimo

24. S. Gennaro

79. SIENA

134. Buoncon\cnto

25. Camigliano

80. Ruballa

135. Gastello di Bclcaro

26. Saltocchio

81. Antella

136. Lecceto

27. Segromigno

82. Torre a Cona

137. Torri

28. Peseta

83. Fie sole

138. Mensano

29. Collodi

84. Cafaggiolo

139. Montidano

30. Moncecatini

85. Borgo S. Lorenzo

140. Corsano

31. Monsummano

86. Scarperia

1 41. Lucignano

32. Altopascio

87. Barberino

142. Piombino

33. La Gattaiola

88. Dicomano

143. Massa Marittima

34. S. Maria del Giudice

89. S. Godenzo

144. Radicofani

35. Pugnano

90. Rosano

145. Abbadia S. Sahatore

36. Cascina

91. V’allombrosa

146. .\rcidosso

37. Vicopisano

92. Cascia di Reggello

147. S. Flora

38. Certosa di Cold

93. Borgo alia Collina

148. So\ana

39. LIVORNO

94. Poppi

149. Pitigliano

40. Faugha

95. Pratovecchio

150. Montemerano

41. Lari

96. Stia

151. Saturnia

42. Varramista

97. Certomondo

152. Maghano in Toscana

43. 5 . Miniaio

98. Soci

153. Ruins of S. Robono

44. Vollerra

99. Camaldoli

154. GROSSETO

45. PISTOIA

100. Romena

155. Ruins of Roselle

46. S. Baronto

10 1. Bibbicna

156. Orbetello

47. Empoli

102. Torre del Ca>teIiano

157. FLORENCE

48. Castelhorento

103. Figlinc

158. S. Maria a Monte

49. S. Maria in Chianni

104. S. Giovanni Valdarno

159. BOLOGNA

50. S. Gimignano

105. Terranuova Bracciolini

160. LA SPEZIA

51, Villa Barone

106. Montcvarchi

1 61. PERUGIA

52. Prato

107. Montemardan' »

162. Orneto

53. Poggio a Caiano

108. Gropina

163. MTERBO

54. Poggibonsi

109. Arceno

164. Brancoli

55. Colie di Vaideisa

no. Civitella della Chiana

165. Monte Oli\eto Maggiore

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

Pietro Francavilla, Summer and Autumn
by Giovanni Caccini, and Winter by
Taddeo Landini.

See text, pp. 56-57. All three arches of the
bridge were totally destroyed. Nothing re-
mained but the two piers and part of the
abutments, which were heavily damaged
at the top, but well preserved below. Both
piers were heavily damaged, especially at
the top, but the south pier more so than
the north. All four statues with their ped-
estals were smashed into hundreds of
pieces, and considerable sections of these
fell into the river.

Any salvage operations were compli-
cated by the absolute necessity of con-
structing and maintaining over the
wreckage a Bailey bridge, which remained
for weeks the sole method by which
wheeled vehicles could cross from the
northern to the southern part of the city,
and for many months thereafter the only
bridge for civilian vehicles. In spite of
these difficulties and of the security prob-
lem involved in the fact that the front
was still located in the outskirts of the
city, salvage operations were started under
direction of the sculptor Giannetto Man-
nucci, only a few days after the liberation
of the center of Florence.

Small fragments which might be destroyed
by engineering troops building the Bailey
were the first to be removed to safety.
Large sections of the figures of Spring,
Summer, and Winter were found on the
Lungarni, and since it was not possible
to traverse the bridge, were carried in
handcarts and barrows to both the Uffizi
and the Pitti. It was necessary to dive for
the other pieces. The only important piece
still missing from the group is the head of
Spring.

By October the flooded Arno threatened
to corrode and carry away what remained
of the piers. Under the direction of the
architect Riccardo Gizdulich, the stone-
work still standing was dismounted piece
by piece, numbering the pieces, and
measured drawings and twenty-one plas-
ter casts were made of all remaining frag-

ments. Complete elevations of the bridge
were executed, based on fifty-seven photo-
graphs of various sizes, all taken before
the destruction, and on the studies of
Ferroni, Vulliamy, and Parigi. Recon-
struction of the statues, also on the basis
of photographs, was undertaken by Man-
nucci. All four figures are now complete
save for the missing head of Spring. Even-
tually, if the Florentines wish, it should
be possible to reconstruct a bridge practi-
cally indistinguishable from the destroyed
masterpiece, with all its decorative ele-
ments complete.

Torre degli Amidei

Huge thirteenth century tower, one of the
most important of all, situated in the very
center of the destroyed area.

See text, p. 55. The north wall, part of
the west wall, and almost all of the east
wall had completely collapsed, leaving the
south wall in highly fractured state,
riddled with cracks.

The south wall was first strutted with
enormous beams w’hich had been aban-
doned by the military. In spite of adverse
counsel of engineering authorities, rubble
was cleared from below and all ancient
blocks of stone sorted out. One of the
great lion heads emerged intact. A con-
crete foundation was laid, the masonry of
the south wall reworked, and the remain-
ing walls rebuilt in rough brick. The en-
tire facade has now been faced with the
old stone, the lions and other decorative
elements replaced, and a roof over the
tower is complete (Figs. 11-14).

Torre dei Baldovinetti
Thirteenth century tower, one of few re-
maining to full original height.

Roof completely destroyed and walls dam-
aged by mines. Reroofing and consolida-
tion completed by the end of March 1945.

Torre dei Carducci

Fine thirteenth century tow'er.

Roof completely destroyed and heavy dam-
age to adjacent structures by mines. Re-

{ 127 }

APPENDIX II

roofing and demolition of threatened
structures completed in April 1945.

Torre del Mannelli

Thirteenth century tower, key structure
for south end of Ponte Vecchio (Fig. 6).
Roof entirely removed by explosion. Re-
built by July I, 1945. Repairs to shattered
portion of Vasari’s corridor, here con-
nected to tower, consisted only of con-
solidating still standing consoles, and
covering them with roof tiles.

Uffizi Gallery

See text, pp. 46-47. Gallery severely dam-
aged throughout by explosions. Roof tiles
largely smashed and disarranged, and al-
most all glass windows and skylights shat-
tered. Many sections of decorative frescoes
badly damaged; large sections of Allori
frescoes in early part of gallery have fallen,
and sixteenth and seventeenth century
decorative frescoes in corridors damaged.
Roofing of gallery complete. Skylights
complete in first five galleries under amg.
Remaining skylights restored by Italian
Government. Restoration and consolida-
tion of decorative frescoes almost com-
plete by departure of amg. First section of
gallery reopened to public in November

1947-

Vffizi-PiUi Corridor

Roof damaged throughout, corridor filled
with wreckage, arch to Torre di Parte
Guelfa and continuation destroyed to
south edge of devastated area: angle at
north entrance to Ponte Vecchio severely
damaged. Wreckage has been cleared, cor-
ridor reroofed; angle at Ponte Vecchio has
been rebuilt, and remaining portions
around Torre dei Mannelli covered with a
temporary roof.

FIRENZUOLA (Florence)

Castle

Important fourteenth century structure al-
most destroyed by .\.merican air action.
Completely reconstructed by Italian Gov-
ernment.

FORTE DEI MARMI (Lucca)

Fortino Mediceo
Cinquecento fort.

Shell damage to roof and walls.

FOSDINOVO (Apuania)

55 . Annunziata

Late Renaissance church.

Considerable damage to roof and interior.

5 . Remigio

Church lined with rich Baroque altars in
marble. Fine Gothic tomb of Galeotto Mal-
aspina, 1367.

Heavy damage to roof, vaults, campanile.
Repairs completed by Italian Government
with funds furnished by ,amg.

GALLUZZO (Florence)

Certosa

Numerous shell hits on roof of church,
convent, and cloisters, including above the
frescoes of Pontormo. Slight damage to
frescoes; 200 sq. meters of roof to replace
and 300 to reset. All roof damage has been
repaired. Damage to campanile still to be
repaired.

GAVILLE (Florence)

Pieve

Fine early Romanesque church belonging
to group of eight erected in the province
during time of Countess Matilda.
Damaged by shellfire and by weather. Re-
paired only after departure of amg.

GIOGOLI (Florence)

5 . Alessandro

Twelfth century Romanesque church.
Shell damage to roof and campanile. Al-
most entire church roof and vault below
had to be demolished and reconstructed.
Damage repaired.

I Collazzi

One of the three or four finest villas in
the environs of Florence. Splendid arcades
by Sand di Tito.

Heavily shelled on both south and north
facades. Roofs devastated, portion of ar-
cade destroyed. All repairs undertaken by
proprietor, and completed.

{ 128 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

GROPINA (Arezzo)

Pieve

Splendid early Romanesque church, same
group as Gaville, Stia, Strada, Romena, etc.
Shell damage to exterior loggia around
apse. Repaired after departure of amg.

IMPRUNETA (Florence)

S. Maria dell’ Impruneta
See text, pp. 57-61. Devastated by heavy
caliber bombs. Roof almost entirely de-
stroyed. Baroque gilded wood ceding
blown to bits, beams which remained
were ready to fall. Right wall leaned per-
ilously outward. Triumphal arch and
apse utterly destroyed. Wreckage piled ten
to fifteen feet high throughout church.
Tabernacles by Michelozzo badly wrecked,
with plaster frieze by Michelozzo totally
destroyed. Luca della Robbia altarpieces
and ceilings inside tabernacles blown to
small pieces save for large section which
still adhered to the wall. In August ap-
peared beyond repair (Figs. 15-21).

Tons of rubble were sifted three separate
times to disgorge all tiniest fragments of
works of art. Apse now reconstructed in
rough masonry up to the eaves, and re-
roofed. Right nave wall has been com-
pletely demolished and rebuilt up to the
eaves, while the roof beams were supported
on scaffolding.

A reinforced concrete collar has been
built along the whole top of the right
nave wall in order to consolidate it prop-
erly, and unite it to the apse. A reinforced
concrete beam has been built to solidify
the joining of the nave, sacristy, and
apse below floor level.

Left nave wall developed alarming cracks
near facade and was dismantled at that
point and reconstructed; roof beams shored
at that point.

Rococo ceiling of small choir of the Ma-
donna fell entirely, disclosing conoids of
fine fourteenth century Gothic vaults
underneath. This structure, to the left of
the nave, together with the left sacristy,
containing a fine Renaissance armadio. was
reroofed at once, and the vaulting has now
been rebuilt by the Italian Government.

The fragments of the majestic tabernacles
by Michelozzo have been pieced together.
The church, which seemed a hopeless
wreck in August was not only out of all
danger by the time amg left but was al-
ready half reroofed with tiles. While the
Baroque ceiling is beyond hope, the rest
of the church will possibly be more inter-
esting than before. The roof w^as com-
pleted during the fall of 1945, and the
church reconsecrated for the festival of the
Madonna dell’ Impruneta in 1946.

WORKS OF art: Two tabernacles by Luca
della Robbia blown to bits by high ex-
plosives. Hundreds of pieces carefully put
together again; work of recomposition
nearly complete. Two temples by Miche-
lozzo collapsed by high explosive, and now
recomposed. Polyptych by Tommaso del
Mazza and Pietro Nelli blown to bits by
high explosive and buried under tons of
rubble. All fragments have been sifted
from rubble and carried to the Uffizi. Large
decorative paintings and altarpieces in
basilica damaged by explosives and rain;
detached at once and taken to safety. All
panel pictures from the sacristy have been
taken to safety. Renaissance choir stalls
badly damaged by rubble under wreckage
of destroyed apse, now' restored.

LASTRA A SIGNA (Florence)

5 . Martino a Gangalandi
Church of w'hich Leon Battista Alberti was
prior. Fine apse by Alberti. Important tab-
ernacle frescoed inside and out by Bicci di
Lorenzo, all intact.

Slight shell damage to roof of the portico.
Torre di Baccio

This mediaeval city gate was unroofed and
heavily cracked by bombs. Completely re-
paired May 1945, after repeated inter-
vention by MFAA office.

L.A. VERX.\ (Arezzo)

Franciscan Convent

See text, pp. 90-91. Under shellfire for ten
days; roofs smashed in various parts, .\bout
fitteen per cent to reconstruct, and seventy
per cent new material needed. Half of
portico destroyed.

{ 129 }

APPENDIX II

Portico reconstructed by Italian Govern-
ment. Reliefs by Andrea della Robbia in-
tact. Relief of Pieta by Giovanni della
Robbia smashed by direct shell hit; frag-
ments salvaged.

LIVORNO (Livorno)

Cathedral

Baroque church largely by Giovanni del
Fantasia. Portico attributed to Inigo Jones.
Rich interior decoration.

About seventy per cent destroyed. Huge
gap in facade of right transept. Transept
wall re-erected and some rubble removed.
Further salvage work awaits financing of
projects.

Although the great gilded ceiling is totally
destroyed, the ceiling paintings by Jacopo
Logozzi were all removed by the superin-
tendent before the bombings and are safe
in Calci.

Sma. Annunziata del Greet
Sumptuous Baroque church with large sev-
enteenth century Greek iconostasis.

Half destroyed. Sculptured facade and rear
half of church remain standing, in
dangerous condition. Movable parts of
iconostasis have been dismounted, only
after theft of several of the panels, part of
which were recovered by office. At

the departure of AXte the rest of the work
awaited financing of projects. Missing por-
tions of structure now completed by
Italian Government.

5 . Caterina del Domenicanl
Large octagonal church by Giovanni del
Fantasia. Only church in Livorno which
was still usable.

Minor damage to roof and doors.

S. T erdinando

Splendid late Baroque church by Giovanni
Battista Foggini, with rich marble sculjv
tures by Giovanni Baratta.

Explosion of bomb against south aisle of
church blew in almost two-thirds of south
wall, up to the crossing pier, which with-
stood miraculously. All sculpture by Ba-
ratta saved in advance by superintendent.
Vaulting badly cracked and roof tiles
shattered (Figs. 42-43).

Destroyed wall and lateral chapel com-
pletely reconstructed in rough masonry,
incorporating fallen architectural frag-
ments. When plastered, and sculpture re-
installed, repairs will not be detectible.

5 . Giovanni Battista
Early Baroque church.

Structural lesions by near miss resulted in
collapse of apse just missing splendid
Baroque high altar and baldachin by
Ferdinando Tacca. Apse has been re-
constructed and roof largely repaired.

S. Giulia

Small church with rich, early Baroque
painted and gilded interior. Giottesque
panels of Uje of S. Giulia removed to
safety by superintendent. Splendid altar-
piece by Matteo Rosselli totally destroyed
by vandals after liberation of city.

Roof damaged almost throughout; big
holes in two side walls. Ceiling and in-
terior decorations threatened. Repairs
completed April 25, 1945.

S. Giuseppe

Early nineteenth century neoclassic church.
Roof destroyed completely, damage to
walls.

S. Gregorio degli Armeni
Sumptuous late Baroque church with rich
marble sculpture and architectural dec-
oration.

Devastated by direct hit, which destroyed
the cupola and all the altarpieces, filling
church with rubble. Rubble has been
removed, and statues and architectural
fragments saved.

Church of the Madonna, and Convent
Roof seventy per cent damaged. Big hole
in wall of convent. Damage to vaulted
ceilings. Removal of rubble and saving of
artistic fragments. Library sacked by van-
dals. Roof repaired by Italian Government.

Synagogue

One of the most important in Europe.
Splendid late Renaissance building,
erected by Ferdinand I.

Devastated by direct bomb hits; roof com-

{ no }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

pletely collapsed. One side of gallery has
collapsed. Rubble removed. All major work
still to commence. Silver treasure stolen
by vandals. Manuscripts intact.

Palazzotto del Comune
Late Baroque palace.

Heavy damage to the part facing sea,
various ceilings collapsed, roof partly col-
lapsed; seventy per cent to be redone.

Bastione Mediceo
Cinquecento fortress.

Considerably damaged in central part.
Roof hit by shells, about ninety per cent
to rebuild. Big holes in walls.

Palazzo Granducale
Seventeenth century Baroque palace.
Heavily damaged by bombs. Ninety per
cent of roof to be redone. Damage to
southwest wall and interior.

Palazzo del Monte di Pieta
Fine, late Baroque palace.

Hit by bombs, roof and walls heavily dam-
aged.

Palazzo Pretoria
Seventeenth century.

Partly demolished through bombardments.
Reconstruction of three rooms at ground,
first, and second floor.

LOPPIA (Lucca)

Pieve

Romanesque church, with Baroque ci-
borium.

Shell damage to fagade.

LUCCA (Lucca)

Cathedral

Splendid Romanesque and Gothic church
of first importance. German 280 mm. shell
pierced roof of north aisle, exploding
direcdy above the chapel of the Volto
Santo, by Matteo Civitali, causing consider-
able damage to the marble lantern, but not
hurting the Volto Santo itself. Fragments
flew all over church, scarring several altar-
pieces of minor interest and damaging
badly the fine Cinquecento gilded and
painted organ panels. One entire bay of

aisle vaulting had to be reconstructed. Ex-
terior sculpture and ornament intact.

MASSA (Apuania)

Cathedral

Gothic, much restored and rebuilt.
Heavily damaged by shellfire. Works of
art intact.

Palazzo Ducale
Splendid Baroque palace.

Palace devastated by concentrated shell-
fire. Interiors badly wrecked, roof almost
blown off, walls and floors inside de-
molished, architectural decorations on
enormous facade damaged in innumerable
places. Repairs executed with funds ad-
ministered by AMG.

Castello Malaspina
Imposing Gothic casde.

Heavily damaged by condnued shellfire.

MEZZAVIA (Arezzo)

S. Maria degli Angeli
Sixteenth century octagonal church mined
and utterly destroyed by Germans, save
for small secdon of wall. All rubble re-
moved, architectural fragments sorted out
and remaining wall consolidated by April
30, 1945. Now half reconstructed by Italian
Government.

MONTECARLO S. SALVATORE
(Pisa)

S. Andrea A postal o
Fourteenth century Gothic church.
Damage to roof and vaults.

MONTELUPO (Florence)

5 . Lorenzo {Piet/e Alto)

Large shell holes in masonry of campanile,
causing severe damage to precious thir-
teenth century frescoes by Corso da
Firenze. Roof of church completely gone
for many decades. Fresco repairs com-
menced under amg. Church now reroofed
by Italian Government, and tabernacles
reconstructed.

MONTE SENARIO (Florence)

Convent

Cinquecento structure in spectacular posi-
tion.

{ 131 }

APPENDIX 11

Two hundred sq. meters of damaged roof.
Repairs completed May 1945.

NOVOLI (Florence)

S. Cristoforo

Roof tiles displaced by explosion. Repair
completed April 1945.

PALAIA (Pisa)

Pieue

Trecento Gothic church in brick, much re-
stored.

Hit by shells, roof heavily damaged, shell
damage to walls, repaired by Italian Gov-
ernment.

PASSIGNANO (Florence)

S. Michele

Church rebuilt by Passignano. Frescoes by
Passignano and others, and in refectory
Last Supper by Domenico and Davide
Ghirlandaio (1476); all intact.

Shell damage to roof; thirty per cent to re-
construct, fifty per cent to reset; most
urgent work completed June 15, 1945.

PI AN DI MUG-NONE (Florence)

La Maddalena

Quattrocento church by Michelozzo, with
works of art by Fra Bartolommeo and
others, all intact.

Shell holes in roof; ten per cent to re-
construct, fifty per cent to reset. Column
knocked down by truck, with danger to
vault of portico. Roof repaired, portico
shored; column replaced.

PIETR.\S.-\NTA (Lucca)

Cathedral

Gothic, with splendid facade. Fine Ren-
aissance furniture largely by Stagio Stagi
and Lorenzo Stagi, all intact.

Roof vaults and apse and campanile
heavily damaged by shellfire; work com-
pleted bv Italian Government through
funds provided by amc.

Baptistery

Baroque building, attached to cathedral.
Damage to roof and facade.

S. Agosttno

Fine Quattrocento Gothic facade.
Considerable damage to root, altar, pave-

ment, marble confessional, facade, cam-
panile, and Sacrato. Repaired by Italian
Gov’ernment.

PIENZA (Siena)

Cathedral

Superb Gothic and Renaissance church by
Bernardo Rossellino, centerpiece of the
Quattrocento town.

Church shelled so long by French artillery
that it is a miracle it is not more damaged.
Numerous shell holes in roof, vaulting,
and window tracery; almost entire roof to
replace. Shell damage to campanile.
MFAA office provided for roof repairs, but
Bishop and Count Piccolomini raised
money for all other repairs, including
tracery, decorations, etc.

Except for a few of the nave windows, still
walled up, the cathedral is now in ab-
solutely perfect condition, as if nothing
had ever happened to it. All the altar-
pieces by Giovanni di Paolo, Vecchietta,
Sano di Pietro, Matteo di Giovanni, and
Rossellino, are back in their places, and
the only damage was the shell fragment
that struck the Vecchietta. All works from
rich diocesan museum intact.

PIEVE DI S. CASSIANO (Lucca)

Piece

Splendid thirteenth century Romanesque
church.

Campanile completely destroyed by mines.

PIEVE A RIPOLI (Florence)

5 . Pietro

Early Romanesque church. Works of art
intact.

Damage not only to tiles but also to roof
timbers. Roof damage completely repaired.

PIE\T STO. STEF.LNO (Arezzo)

S. Francesco

See text, pp. 91-93. LTinteresting church
badly wrecked by German mines. Della
Robbia school relief still filled apse of
church. Tottering vault was shored by citi-
zens of destroyed town until great altar-
piece could be dismantled piece by piece. Re-
lief now in place in undamaged Collegiata.

{ 132 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

Palazzo Communde

Building thirty per cent destroyed by Ger-
man mines. Standing facade covered with
Della Robbia coats-of-arms had started to
buckle. Before demolition all reliefs were
rescued, and all pieces rescued from ad-
jacent rubble. Recomposition completed.

PIOMBINO (Livorno)

Fortezza

Sixteenth century fort.

Heavily damaged by bombs.

PISA (Pisa)

Cathedral

Grandiose Romanesque basilica of first
importance.

Shell damage to lead roof. Completely re-
paired in September 1944. All works of
art intact.

S. A gala

Unimportant mediaeval church.

Outside wall of cloister partially collapsed.
Removal of rubble.

S. Antonio

Fine marble facade, lower story Gothic,
upper Cinquecento.

Roof of church completely collapsed, to-
gether with south wall. Cloister partly
destroyed. Entrances to church closed, rub-
ble removed.

S. Bernardino

Heavily damaged modern church was be-
yond repair, so was demolished to free the
tiny Romanesque round church; holes
in walls still to be patched.

S. Biagio in Cisanello
Small brick Gothic church.

Roof largely collapsed. Repairs to outside
walls completed May 20. 1945.

Campo Santo

See detailed account in text, pp. 80-87, and

figs- 32-33-^

The first-aid work was done by the end of
October. The temporary roof was built
and temporary consolidadon of frescoes
completed, lead and rubble cleared up,
fresco fragments gathered for repair, and
sculptures restored. But the vast under-

taking of providing a new roof for the
building and performing the intricate
restoration job for frescoes has been as-
sumed by the Italian Government. The
frescoes have now been detached from the
walls at the expense of the American
Commission for Italian Monuments, with
remarkable discoveries of sinopia draw-
ings of excellent quality underneath the
frescoes.

Carmine

Mediaeval church rebuilt in seventeenth
century.

Shell damage to roof; sixty per cent to
replace. Complete collapse of east wall of
cloister. Roof completely repaired and re-
taining wall built for cloister April 21,

1945-

5 . Caterina

Important Pisan Gothic church, with rich
marble faijade. All works of art intact.
Shell hole in roof; windows broken almost
throughout. Roof damage repaired.

S. Cecilia

Small Romanesque church in brick.

Left wall collapsed almost completely,
bringing down greater part of roof. Rub-
ble cleared, fragments salvaged, left wall
rebuilt, campanile shored, roof rebuilt over
facade. Roof over high altar remains to be
rebuilt. Reconstruction of rest will depend
on Italian Government.

SS. Cosimo e Damiano
Unimportant church totally destroyed by
bomb. Marble altars excavated and taken
to safety'.

S. Cristina

Twelfth century church, much rebuilt.
Roof heavily damaged by shellfire; eighty
per cent of surface to reconstruct. Deep
cracks in vaulting. .Ml damage repaired
by April ii, 1945.

5 . Croce in Fossabanda
Fourteenth century Gothic church.

Shell damage to roof, and to campanile,
completely repaired. Unfinanced project
provides for repairs to portico.

{ 133 }

APPENDIX II

S. Domenico

Charming Rococo church.

Direct bomb hits destroyed completely the
right nave wall with all its exquisite
eighteenth century stuccoes; the vaulting
collapsed without a trace, and the roof on
top of it. Roof beams badly damaged and
all tiles lost. Right wall now completely
reconstructed in brick, new roof with
largely new timber and completely new
tiles. Out of danger. At a later time it will
be necessary to reconstruct the vaulting
and the stuccoes. All altars were dis-
manded, and the pictures were removed
to safety before the bombardment. Fresco
by Benozzo Gozzoli in adjoining convent
is intact.

S. Ermete

Small Gothic church.

Shell damage to roof; sixty per cent to be
reconstructed. Large hole in facade. Dam-
age to masonry of church and campanile.
All damage repaired by June 13, 1945.

S. Francesco

Important Gothic church with fine marble
facade.

Shell hole in roof. Many broken windows.
Roof repairs completed. Considerable sum
was necessary to repair damage caused
by Agrarian Federation who used church
as a granary, with permission of .Arch-
bishop of Pisa.

S. Francesco, Chapter House
Shell hit on roof. Flood of November i,
1944, filled room with mud, and mud was
sucked up into the space between inner
and outer walls, threatening the .Agnolo
Gaddi frescoes with destruction by damp-
ness. Shell hole fi.xed, mud drained, and
frescoes dried out with wood-stoves.

S. Frediano

Important Pisan Romanesque church,
with marble facade and impressive in-
terior arcades. All works of art intact.
Roof of church and campanile hit by
shells in several places, endangering vault-
ing of interior. .All damage repaired June

F 1945-

S. Giovanni al Gatano
Roof of unimportant church totally de-
stroyed; heavy damage to interior. Bronze
bells salvaged; structure abandoned.

S. Giovanni Spazzavento

Frescoes by Domenico Tempesta badly

damaged.

Church half demolished. Rest of church
was cleared of rubble and walled up.

Madonna dei Galletti

Small but very beautiful early Baroque

church.

Shell pierced roof and also splendid carved
wooden ceiling of the seventeenth century,
by Vignali, with reliefs of Passion and
paintings of symbolism of the cross. All
damage repaired. Paintings dismounted,
restored, and replaced.

S. Maria Maddalena
Eighteenth century church by Vacca.
Church half destroyed. Beams, building
materials, and altars have been salvaged.

S. Maria della Spina
Gothic Jewel of first importance.
Damaged by near miss of heavy caliber
bomb. Fragments of fallen pinnacle have
all been collected and put together again;
all damage to lead roof has been repaired.
Repairs of minor damage to marble
blocks and decoration of south flank.
Statues ready to be replaced at close of
exhibition of Pisan sculpture (Fig. 34).

S. Martino

Trecento church. Works of art intact.

Roof damaged by shells, forty per cent of
the surface to be reconstructed. Roof re-
pairs completed save over lateral portal.

S. Matteo and Convent

Half Romanesque, half Baroque, both of

high quality.

Heatily damaged by explosion of bombs
on Chiesa delle Monache behind apse of
main church, demolishing the vaulting
with its frescoes by Boscoli, leaving the
Boscoli lunettes e.xposed to the weather,
heavily da.maging the retrochoir and shat-
tering all the roof tiles of the main church.
M ater seeped through and caused

{ B4 }

con-

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

siderable damage to important Baroque
ceiling frescoes by Francesco and Giu-
seppe Melani. Convent largely unroofed,
and architecture itself endangered.

Roof of main church was quickly remade
into a small projecting roof to save the
Melani frescoes from further damage. Re-
pairs to the convent completed; those to
the retrochoir, to be incorporated in the
new home of the Museo Civico of Pisa,
still under way.

5 . Michele in Borgo

Splendid Gothic edifice with superb ar-
caded marble facade.

Left wall and left nave arcade completely
demolished. Roof totally collapsed. The
Gothic fagade luckily intact. All rubble has
been cleared, beams and architectural
fragments, columns and capitals salvaged,
and small roof rebuilt over what remains
of organ and over apse. Left aisle will
have to be rebuilt entirely to close the
church. Work suspended for lack of
funds at the departure of amg, but now
resumed by the Italian Government and
well advanced.

5 . Michele in Oratorio
Unimportant mediaeval church.

Roof damaged by shellfire, sixty per cent
to replace. Damage to walls and campa-
nile. All damage repaired April 26, 1945.

S. Michele degli Sccdzi

Splendid Romanesque church. Facade and

sculpture intact.

Heavy damage to church and campanile
through forty days of shellfire. Roof blown
away almost entirely, vaulting fell, few
existing roof timbers can be reused. Many
holes in walls, campanile so riddled with
shell holes that it was ready to fall. Cam-
panile now completely repaired. Repairs to
church held up through lack of funds
(Figs. 30-31).

S. Nicola

Fine Pisan Romanesque facade.

Two holes in roof, and heavy crack in
facade. Facade repaired, but work on roof
held up through lack of funds. Resumed
by Italian Government.

S. Paolo air Orto

Fine Pisan Romanesque church.

Shell holes in roof. All work completed
April 1945.

S. Paolo a Ripa d’ Arno
Superb Romanesque church, the most im-
portant in Pisa after the cathedral.

Several bomb hits on nave, collapse of
large section of nave roof and third col-
umn of right aisle. All remaining roof
tiles stolen by population. Roof beams
damaged by weather.

Fallen column replaced by timber shoring
before arrival of Allies. Under mfaa roof
reconstructed by replacing damaged tim-
bers and covering with under-layer of ter-
ra cotta panels. Roofing completed by Ital-
ian Government. Second arch on right
dismounted and rebuilt, with wall above
it, and roof timbers placed (Figs. 36-37).

S. Piero a Grado

Romanesque campanile, one of the finest
in Italy, blown up by Germans. Explo-
sion destroyed adjacent corner of church,
and wrecked almost all the roof tiles, ex-
posing the great thirteenth century fresco
series to the rain. Campanile so completely
destroyed as to obliterate all elements nec-
essary for the reconstruction.

Church completely reroofed, very largely
with new material. All rubble removed.
Part had to be blown up as the rain had
compacted it into a sort of cement. Miss-
ing walls at corner of church rebuilt. Cam-
panile can only be rebuilt from photo-
graphs and measured drawings (Figs. 38-
39 )-

S. Piero in Vinculis
Fine Romanesque church.

Shell holes in roof and on campanile. All
work completed February 1945.

Church of the Dual coni a
Interesting late Renaissance church.
Heavy damage to roof, walls and ceiling;
repaired by Italian Government.

S. Sebastiano in Banchi

Afediocre church damaged beyond repair.

i B5 }

APPENDIX 11

Rest demolished as a public menace, and
all salvageable materials put aside.

S. Sisto

Important early Romanesque church.

Shell hole on south aisle, repaired Janu-
ary 1945.

S. Stejano dei Cavalieri
Splendid Mannerist church by Vasari.
Widespread damage by German mortar
shell which landed in garden, backfired
and hit the campanile, destroying colon-
nettes and balusters and dropping debris
through the ceiling, severely damaging a
portion of the great gilded wood ceiling.
Subsequent rains caused further damage,
especially to the shell-thin vaults of the
side aisles, which were filled with debris
from an early disorderly repair of the roof.
This debris turned into mud, and several
of the vaults collapsed. Shell hits on cam-
panile particularly dangerous on account
of the fragility of the open Renaissance
arcaded structure. All ceiling paintings
had previously been removed and taken
to safety.

Roof has had to be remade almost through-
out. It is now complete. Repairs to cam-
panile complete. Bits of carving from ceil-
ing out and recomposed. -All endangered
mediaeval banners had been removed to
safety.

S. Zeno

Minor Gothic structure.

Damage to roof, windows and walls
through shells.

Casa Bocca-Travaglini
Fine mediaeval house -tower, with Roman-
esque windows and arcades.

Hit by shells. Damage to roof and walls;
now completely repaired.

Loggia dei Banchi

Fine loggia bv Cosimo Pugliani. possibly
on designs by Buontalenti.

Roof pierced by shellfire, about torty per
cent of surface to replace. Damage to ceil-
ings and marble floors. Root repairs com-
pleted and building out of danger.

Palazzo Agostini

One of the richest Gothic palaces in Tus-
cany.

Shell damage to roof repaired by pro-
prietor; repairs to interior continuing.

Palazzo della Carovana

Superb fagade by Vasari, with rich sgraj-

fiti.

Damage to portions of the interior through
fire caused by negligence of American
air corps unit. All damage repaired.

Palazzo alia Giornata
Handsome late Cinquecento palace.
Partial collapse of part of palace overlook-
ing courtyard by German mines. Heavy
damage to interior and to roof. Removal
of rubble mostly completed and roof on
west side and on tower practically fin-
ished by AMG and proprietor. Repairs
completed by Italian Government.

Palazzo 'Medici

Rich Gothic palace, much restored.
Three-quarters of the palace destroyed;
now rebuilt by Italian Government.

Palazzo Pretoria (Torre dell’ Orologio)
Tower completely destroyed. Bronze bell
and building materials have been salvaged
from the ruins.

Palazzo Reale

Hit by bombs and also damaged by Ger-
man mines. Roof badly damaged, and cen-
tral portion at rear demolished. Reroofing
of standing portions completed. Demoli-
tion of threatened portions and removal
of rubble remains to be done.

Palazzo Toscanelli

Fine Cinquecento palace, damaged by
shells and mines.

Xo project made. Work consisted only of
walling up entrances. Repairs now- com-
pleted b\ Italian Government.

Sostegno snl Fosso dei XaviceUi
Gothic canal gate.

Root completely gone, .\rches and vaults
partly collapsed.

{ 136 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

PISTOIA

Cathedral

Gothic structure o£ first importance. All
works of art intact.

Heavy blast damage to roof over apse, im-
periling the fresco series by Passignano
and other sixteenth century painters. All
roof and wall repairs completed June 30,

1945-

Baptistery

Splendid Gothic building in black and
white marble.

Blast damage to roof and walls. Roof
damage repaired June 20, 1945. Wall dam-
age recendy patched.

S. Antonio del Tau

Small building with unusual fresco series
by Florentine and Pistoiese late Trecento
painters. Damaged by blast from near
miss. Urgent repairs made.

S. Domenico and Convent
Gothic church with painted timber ceiling
and rich series of frescoes and sculptures.
Direct bomb hits largely demolished clois-
ter and chapter house, plus approximately
one-third of south nave wall, including
the tomb of Filippo Lazzari by Bernardo
Rossellino, smashed into little pieces. Paint-
ed fourteenth century roof timbers in af-
fected area collapsed, and many were re-
duced to splinters. Roof tiles throughout
were badly damaged, so that church leaked
everywhere. Convent devastated.

Several frescoes totally destroyed including
a Madonna and Child by Fra Paolino, a
Trecento Annunciation, and a fresco by
Bartolommeo Cristiani. The series of fres-
coed lunettes in the large cloister, by Se-
bastiano Vini, illustrating the lives of
the Dominican saints, now practically de-
stroyed by rain.

All rubble has been cleared and sorted.
Many architectural fragments have been
saved, and reconstruction of cloister is pos-
sible. Protection made of roof tiles has
been placed over conoids of vaults still
remaining attached to wall. Rescued beams
have been covered with tiles, and will be
ready to replace. Remaining section of

roof has been completely redone and is
now watertight.

Bomb damage to right wall is now re-
paired. Demolished portion has been re-
placed by new wall, complete from floor
to eaves. Adjacent badly damaged section
has been dismanded and is now recon-
structed, while timbers above are shored.
Restoration of interior nearing completion.
Temporary protecdons have been erected
over frescoes by Lippi Dalmasio in cloister
and magnificent thirteenth century Cruci-
fixion fresco in chapter house, entirely
freed from rubble, and now protected from
further damage by dampness and sun. This
latter suffered severely from having re-
mained half covered by damp rubble for
more than a year.

Fresco fragments of fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries, some of fine quality, have
had to be detached from nave to be saved.
Others remain still in place, undamaged.
Si.xteenth century frescoes of cloister large-
ly destroyed by dampness.

Tomb of Filippo Lazzari was fortunately
excavated soon after bombing of church,
and all pieces have been saved, ready to
be put together.

S. Giovanni al Cor so

Beautiful late Quattrocento church by
Ventura Vitoni.

Cupola, vaulting, all four arches com-
pletely collapsed, with roof on top of them.
Walls so damaged that they too will have
to be demolished. Cloisters destroyed in
many places and what remains unroofed.
The following works of art were utterly
destroyed: Nativity, from high altar, by
Sebastiano Vini, twelve pictures by minor
seventeenth century artists; four penden-
tive frescoes by Pistoiese artists of six-
teenth century; Stigmatization of St. Eran-
cis, by Pistoiese artist of sixteenth century;
seventeenth century Last Supper. The
Baratta sculptures on the high altar were
smashed into bits, but these can be put
together.

Mountainous rubble has been excavated,
showing that practically all the elements
are present for the reconstruction of the

{ B7 }

APPENDIX 11

church. Most of the magnificent architec-
tural features in pietra serena have come
out of the rubble intact, and since the
structure of the church was of rough ma-
sonry covered with plaster, these and the
complete measured drawings which exist
will be sufficient to bring back this mas-
terpiece by Ventura Vitoni. Standing por-
tions now shored by Italian Government,
but no reconstruction attempted (Figs. 40-
41).

S. Giovanni Puorcivitas
Bomb landed in street before church, caus-
ing some fragmentation damage to facade.
Buildings behind church wrecked. All tiles
blow'n from roof. Roof timbers damaged
through remaining uncovered for year and
a half. Altar rail damaged by fragmenta-
tion. Protections effective in preventing
damage to the portal, pulpit by Guido da
Como, and stoup by Giovanni Pisano.
Della Robbia group removed for safety.
Church completely reroofed.

Madonna dell’ Umiltd
Grand octagonal church by Ventura Vi-
toni, with cupola by Vasari.

Slight damage to roof and cupola.

S. Maria delle Grazie
Fine Quattrocento church by Michelozzo.
Shell hole in roof, shell hits in walls.
Roof repaired; work on walls not yet
completed. Works of art intact.

S. Salvatore

Thirteenth century Gothic church.
Damage to roof and walls.

Palazzo Communale
Superb Gothic palace.

Minor damage to windows and walls.

Palazzo Panciatichi (Bad)

Impressive Quattrocento palace.

Roof destroyed by bombs, portico and
rear of building, facing Via Panciatichi,
destroyed down to first floor. Roof over
existing part has been rebuilt, and rubble
cleared. Rest awaits financing of project.

PITECCIO (Pistoia)

Parish Church

Roof destroyed. Walls damaged.

POGGIBONSI (Siena)

S. Lucchese

Completely unroofed by fire caused by
artillery shells. Movable works of art, in-
cluding Raffaello dei Carli, Noli me Tan-
gere, triptych by pupil of Orcagna, and a
Gothic statue of the Virgin, totally de-
stroyed by fire. Frescoes by Gaddi school
damaged by fire and rain. Della Robbia
school altarpiece damaged by shell frag-
ments. Paolo di Giovanni Fei frescoes
slighdy damaged by rain and sun. Gerino
da Pistoia frescoes in convent damaged
by rain.

Remarkable Trecento cabinets in sacristy,
with tiny panel paintings by Ugolino da
Siena, perfecdy intact.

Fei frescoes and Robbia altarpiece were
covered by protections of porous brick,
with air holes. Chapels have been reroofed,
as has portion of adjoining house contain-
ing Gerino da Pistoia frescoes. Superin-
tendency has provided for excellent clean-
ing of the frescoes by the restorer Petti-
nelli. Roof over church commenced by
AMG and completed by Italian Govern-
ment.

POGGIO A CAIANO (Florence)

Villa Medici

Majestic villa by Giuliano da Sangallo,
with important frescoes by Pontormo and
others.

Part of roof destroyed by shells. Hits on
walls as well. Doors and windows dam-
aged; frescoes intact. Part of park en-
closure and gates destroyed. Roof and
walls completely repaired.

PONTE A GREVE (Florence)
Tabernacle

Shaken and cracked by explosion of mines
that destroyed adjacent fourteenth century
bridge. Neri di Bicci fresco cracked. Fres-
co consolidated, tabernacle masonry re-
worked; fresco restored.

POPPI (.\rezzo)

5 . Fedele

Damage to roof by shells and blast; sev-
enty per cent to reset. Work completed
June 30, 1945. .\11 works of art intact.

( ns }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

PRATO (Florence)

Cathedral and cloister

Romanesque and Gothic church of first

importance.

Slight damage to roof. Windows near
Filippo frescoes broken. Loggia of cloister
ruined, portico in bad condition. Roof
repaired over church, but work on cloister
held up awaiting financing. AH works of
art, including sculpture by Giovanni Pi-
sano and Donatello and frescoes by Ag-
nolo Gaddi and Filippo Lippi, intact.

S. AGOSTINO
Gothic church.

Apse destroyed by bomb. Chapel with
frescoes of Poccetti school badly shaken
and cracked. Reconstructed by Italian Gov-
ernment.

S. Bartolommeo
Trecento church.

Church totally destroyed by bombs. At-
tempt made to salvage cloister; demolition
later proved necessary.

S. Maria delle Carceri

Superb Renaissance church by Giuliano

da Sangallo.

Damage to outer wall of right transept
by near miss. Damage to wall repaired.
Della Robbia medallions had been re-
moved to safety and are intact.

S. Maria del Giglio

Four-fifths of roof over nave collapsed, as
well as part of right wall with its altar
and one arch of portico. Clearing of rubble
and recovery of architectural fragments
complete.

5 . Maria della Field

Early Seicento church with arcaded loggia.
Shell holes on roof of nave and choir; one-
quarter of roof of portico damaged; some
of vaults of portico cracked. Roof repaired.

House of Filippino Uppi
See text, pp. 62-63. House completely de-
molished by direct bomb hit. which
smashed in thousands of pieces the taber-
nacle fresco by Filippino. This fresco has
been completely recomposed by the restorer

Tintori and the fragments of fifteenth cen-
tury architecture rescued from the house.

Palazzo Pretorio

Fine thirteenth century palace.

Three shell holes in roof, opening building
to rain which caused floor of one room to
collapse; almost all windows broken. Re-
pairs completed.

PUGNANO (Pisa)

Parish Church

Simple Romanesque church.

Campanile destroyed by German mines,
wrecking portion of church. Walls now
rebuilt by Italian Government.

S. ANDREA A CERCINA (Florence)
Pieve

Eleventh century church often restored.
Shell damage to roofs of church, cloister,
loggia, and chapter house; 70 sq. meters
to reconstruct and 350 to reset. Most ur-
gent work completed under amg; re-
mainder under Italian Government.

S. BARONTO (Pistoia)

Parish Church

Fine primitive Romanesque church in idyl-
lic landscape setting.

Church almost totally destroyed by Ger-
man mines; rubble cleared. Poccetti school
frescoes largely lost. Reconstruction by
Italian Government now under way.

S. CASCIANO (Florence)

Church of the Misericordia
Unimportant church with splendid pulpit
by Giovanni di Balduccio, triptych by
Ugolino da Siena and Crucifix by Simone
Martini, all intact.

Roof tfles completely blown away by
bombs. New roof completed June 30, 1945.

S. DONATO A CALENZANO
(Florence)

San Donato

Part of the roof damaged by shells. Cam-
panile now reconstructed by Italian Gov-
ernment.

S. DONNINO (Florence)

Tower of the T ornaquinci Palace
Roof completely destroyed through bom-

( 139 }

APPENDIX 11

bardments, 8o sq. meters of roof to be re-
placed; now reconstructed.

S. GLMIGNANO (Siena)

Collegiata

See text, pp. 11-13. Heavily pounded by
artillery. Roof tiles blown off or fractured
throughout building. Large holes in nave
and aisle vaulting. Direct hit on chapel of
S. Fina brought down only one side of
curtain of Benedetto da Maiano tomb.
Large hole in Barna Crucifixion and Mar-
riage in Cana. Large shell hole in Taddeo
di Bartolo Paradise.

Arrangements for roof repairs quickly
contracted by Captain Keller. Roof even-
tually entirely recovered in church itself.
Windows have either been bricked up or
filled with composition board and glass.
All shell holes in masonry have been re-
paired. Three windows, preexistent to, and
covered by, the frescoes, have been walled
up from the back. Window nearest the
fagade, most likely to fall, was shored
from the inside to prevent immediate col-
lapse.

Fragments have been recovered and fitted
into the frescoes of the Crucifixion and the
Marriage in Cana, now solid and out of
danger. Smaller pieces seem to be in
conditions beyond recovery, so that certain
sections of both these frescoes are lost for-
ever. The Flight into Egypt, on the win-
dow which fell December 22, 1944, has
been pieced together on a wood stretcher
and replaced in the window. The work,
a job of infinite patience, was complicated
by the half obliterated condition of that
section of the series, and by the fact that
the fresco, falling from such a height, was
disintegrated rather than smashed. The
result of the long labor is a mosaic in
which hardly more than the outline of
the composition is decipherable.

Careful cleaning by the Italian Govern-
ment has removed all the nineteenth cen-
tury repaint, already loosened by damp-
ness, which formerly disfigured the Barna
frescoes. They are now consolidated and.
except for the missing sections, in better
condition than before the war.

San Bartolo

Small but very fine Romanesque church
in brick. Roof totally collapsed. Only out-
side walls remain intact; roof now re-
built by Italian Government.

Palazzo Communale

Struck by numerous shells of heavy cali-
ber. Roof badly smashed, and some large
holes in masonry. All masonry holes have
been patched and roof has been repaired.
Fresco by Lippo Memmi intact. Thir-
teenth century hunt frescoes damaged in
several places; work of consolidation com-
plete.

S. GIOVANNI VALDARNO (Arezzo)
5 . Lorenzo

Blast damage to roof; 70 sq. meters to re-
place and 100 sq. meters to reset. Repairs
completed December 31, 1944- Della Rob-
bia reliefs and Madonna by Master of the
Fogg Pieta intact; latter in Florence.

S. Maria delle Grazie
Bombing of adjacent railway destroyed
eighteenth century half of basilica right
down to the crypt, and badly damaged
roof of sixteenth century portion. Roof of
sixteenth century portion completely reset
with large percentage of new tiles, walled
off from destroyed portion, and consoli-
dated by masonry spurs. Vasari gilded
altar intact. Reconstruction of eighteenth
century portion of church now begun by
Italian Government.

Palazzo Pretoria

Fine arcaded Gothic palace.

Military truck backed into corner of pal-
ace at full speed; knocked down octagonal
stone column, which brought down vault-
ing, column above, and vaulting above that
— entire corner of palace. Six Robbia school
and five stone coats-of-arms smashed to
bits. Corner completely reconstructed,
largely with original material and re-
roofed. Robbia reliefs reconstructed and
replaced.

S. GODENZO (Florence)

.-Ibbey

Imposing Romanesque church.

i 140 }

DAMAGED MONUMENTS

Heavy roof damage through explosions of
German mines which completely destroyed
the village. Right corner of apse has severe
crack. Damage completely repaired.

SAN LEO (Arezzo)

S.Leo

Tiny primidve Romanesque church with
fine Quattrocento apse and transepts.
Church already in bad condition before
the war. Direct hit by artillery shell
brought down half the campanile and de-
stroyed what remained of roof. Triumphal
arch badly shaken and ready to collapse.
Two fourteenth century Madonnas in fres-
co as well as fine Quattrocento architec-
tural details have suffered from rain and
sun.

Under amg triumphal arch was dismount-
ed and rebuilt, and church reroofed. Work
on architectural details and campanile
completed under Italian Government.

S. MARCELLO PISTOIESE (Pistoia)

S. Marcello

Heavy damage to walls; roof and vaulting
completely destroyed. Rubble has been re-
moved; rest awaits financing.

S. MARIA A MONTE (Pisa)

Parish Church

Romanesque church, much rebuilt, with
fine tower and superb pulpit.

Many artillery hits caused heavy damage
to roof and walls, and two hits at base of
campanile undermined it dangerously.
Church completely reroofed, and campa-
nile and w'alls repaired.

S. MINIATO (Pisa)

Cathedral

Trecento church, often restored. Scene of
German massacre of scores of helpless
civilians.

Many shell hits on roof and right wall
penetrating into interior; damage to wood-
en ceiling and to campanile. Rubble com-
pletely removed and roof and masonry
repaired.

S. Chiara

Roof partly gone, damage to walls through
mines.

S. Francesco

Impressive Gothic church.

Shell hits on roof and walls; all repairs
completed.

Palazzo Grifoni

Fine Cinquecento palace by Giuliano di
Baccio d’Agnolo.

Germans blew up the entire right wing
of the palace and part of the center in or-
der to block the road. Retaining walls
have been built to hold up what is left of
the palace. All work financed by proprie-
tor.

S. QUIRICO D'ORCIA (Siena)

Collegiaia

Gothic church with magnificent decorative
sculpture.

Roof badly damaged by shellfire and ma-
sonry by shell fragments. Fine choir stalls
open to rain. Sano di Pietro altarpiece bur-
ied by rubble. All roof repairs are now
completed and monument out of danger.
Architectural restorations interrupted by
war will have to be recommenced. Sano di
Pietro brought back to Siena. Great Goth-
ic portal intact.

S. S.A.VINO (Pisa)

Badia

Fine Romanesque abbey church.
Campanile destroyed through mines. Roof
of the church almost gone.

SESTINO (Arezzo)

S. Pancrazio

Small Romanesque church on site of
Roman temple.

Some shell damage. Damage repaired and
architecture cleared of incrustations by
Italian Government.

SERAVEZZA (Lucca)

Cathedral

Provincial Renaissance church.

Heavy damage to roof over the nave,
chapels, and baptistery. Repaired by Italian
Government with funds provided bv amg.

Palazzo Medici

Fine Mannerist building by Ammanati.
Shell damage to roof and walls. Repaired

{ Ml }

APPENDIX 11

by Italian Government with funds pro-
vided by AMG.

SETTIGNANO (Florence)

Villa La Gamberaia

Fine Cinquecento villa with one of the
most perfectly preserved Renaissance gar-
dens in Italy. Germans set fire to files of
Institute of Military Geography stored in
villa, gutting the building completely.
Only outer walls left, in ruinous condition.
Garden intact.

SIENA (Siena)

Mending of large number of broken win-
dows in cathedral and Piccolomini Library.
Completed with temporary means under
AMG, now repaired with glass.

5 . Francesco

Important Gothic church. Lorenzetti fres-
coes and all other works of art intact.
Two hundred and ten sq. meters of roof
ruined, 400 sq. meters damaged, by near
misses. All windows broken. Two beams
endangered by seeping water. Some dam-
age to masonry. Roof repairs completed.
Windows closed with bricks and glass.

Hospital of S. Maria della Scala
Frescoes by Beccafumi, Domenico di Bar-
tolo, and Vecchietta, damaged by infiltra-
tion of water. Beccafumi fresco consoli-
dated and cleaned. Vecchietta frescoes in
Sala di S. Pietro one-third obliterated
through infiltrations. Scaffolding erected
and consolidation of crumbling frescoes
by restorer Pettinelli effected by amg.

Osservanza

Fine Quattrocento church designed by Gia-
como Cozzarelli.

Church largely destroyed by bombs; com-
plete collapse of roof, vaulting of nave,
side aisles, chapels, and sacristy, and almost
total destruction of cupola.

Fragments of Robbia and Cozzarelli re-
liefs base all been excavated from rubble
and carefully put aside ready to be re-
paired. Fragments detached from penden-
tives: all rubble cleared and walls con-
solidated under \mg. Reconstruction near-
ing completion under Italian Government.

Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo
Repair to hole in wall and to windows, all
of which were broken by small caliber
bomb. Contents intact.

Palazzo Bindi-Sergardi
Frescoes, the masterpieces of Beccafumi,
severely shaken by bomb that destroyed
adjoining room. A few small pieces fell,
and were reattached. Endangered portions
of frescoes, already largely detached from
ceiling, were supported by props and con-
solidated by means of injections through
the frescoes and through holes in the vault
above them.

Pinacoteca (Palazzo Buonsignori)

Roof gone for 14 sq. meters and damaged
for 60 sq. meters. Considerable breakage
of glass. All repairs completed by Decem-
ber 1944.

STAZZEMA (Lucca)

S. Maria Assunta

Fine Romanesque church with Quattro-
cento rose window. Explosion of bridge
below caused damage to roof, coffered
ceilings, campanile, and to pavement in
the portico.

TERENZANO (Florence)

5 . Martino

Heavy shell damage to roof. Small cam-
panile collapsed, holes in walls. All urgent
work completed. Works of art intact.

VAGLI SOTTO (Lucca)

S- Agostino

Eleventh century church with traces of
Romanesque frescoes.

Some shell damage to roof and walls; re-
pairs completed.

VICCHIO DI RIMAGGIO (Florence)

S. Lorenzo

Shell damage to walls and roof (40 sq.
meters). .\11 damage repaired May 20,
1945. Early fourteenth century Madonna
and Lorenzo di Bicci frescoes safe.

VILLAFRAXCA LUXIGIANA
(.■\puania)

S. Francesco

Fine church, originally mediaeval but

{ M 2 }

DESTROYED MONUMENTS

much rebuilt. Quattrocento cloister. Church
more than half destroyed. Robbia relief
badly damaged, and another buried under
rubble.

VILLAMAGNA (Florence)

S. Donnino

Primitive Romanesque church.

Shell damage to walls and roof (50 sq.
meters), to fagade and campanile. Re-
pairs completed. Granacci, Ghcrardo, and
Mariotto di Nardo altarpieces safe.

VINCI (Florence)

S. Ansano

Heavy damage through direct bomb hit;
portico completely destroyed, half of cam-
panile collapsed, roof badly damaged. Re-
moval of rubble completed; interior re-
stored. Rest of work awaits financing.

VOLOGNANO (Florence)

Parish Church

Church being without importance, it was
decided to repair adjacent oratory roof,
as refuge for large altarpieces by Fra Bar-

tolommeo and Puligo. Repairs completed
July 31, 1945.

VOLTERRA (Pisa)

Cathedral

Splendid Romanesque church, with colon-
nade and ceiling rebuilt in late Renais-
sance.

Heavy damage to roof by shellfire, dam-
aging also part of Capriani ceiling, and
uncovering entirely the chapel of S. Carlo.
All roof repairs completed in August. All
works of art, including the great thirteenth
century Crucifi.xion group, and candle-
bearing angels by Mino da Fiesole, intact.

S. Alessandro

Romanesque church, partially rebuilt.
Partial destruction of roof and apse; en-
tire sacristy collapsed. All repair work on
church completed.

Cappella Guidi or Sta. Croce
Slight damage to roof had permitted wa-
ter to filter into vaults and cause some
damage to important, though repainted,
frescoes by Cenni di Guido di Ser Cenni.
Roof tiles were reset.

SECTION III

J[iONUMENTS TOTALLY DESTROYED

A. Towers demolished by the Germans because of possible usefulness as ob-
servation posts:

BADIA A SETTIMO (Florence)

Campanile

BROZZI (Florence)

Campanile

EMPOLI (Florence)

Campanile of Collegiata
Campanile of S. Agostino

MONTISI (Siena)

Torre del Commune

QUARTO (Florence)

Torre degli Agli

( M3 }

S.-\L.\ (Florence)

Campanile of S. Lucia

S.ANSEPOLCRO (Arezzo)

La Berta

SAN C.\SSIANO (Lucca)
Campanile of parish church

SAN BARONTO (Pistoia)
Campanile and most of church

S.VN .MINI A TO (Pisa)

Casde of Frederick II

APPENDIX III

SAN PIERO A GRADO (Pisa) SAN SAVING (Pisa)

Campanile Campanile of former abbey

B. Other monuments blown up by the Germans to serve as road blocks:

BARBERINO VALDELSA (Florence)
Town gate

BORGO ALLA COLLINA (Arezzo)
Arcaded streets (fifteenth century)

CAMAIONE (Florence)

Villa Antinori

CASTIGLION FIORENTINO (Arezzo)
Town gate

CERBAIOLO (Arezzo)

Parish church

FAIANO (Arezzo)

Parish church

FLORENCE (Florence)

Ponte S. Trinita

Casa Macchiavelli (house of the author
of the Principe, many other ancient
houses in the area totally destroyed)
Palazzo Acciaioli (rich Cinquecento pal-
ace; only small section remains)
Palazzo Ambron (Renaissance palace
with superb cortile)

Palazzo de‘ Bardi (seat of Colombaria
Library, with fine Quattrocento ar-
cades over Arno)

Palazzo Barbadori (section of facade
remains)

Palazzo Belfredelli (section of facade re-
mains)

Palazzo Canigiani ( fourteenth century.

with fifteenth<entury cortile)
Palazzo Canigiani (fifteenth century)
Palazzo de .\ngehs

Palazzo Firidolfi-Ricasoli (fourteenth
century)

Palazzo Guicciardini-Mazzei (fourteenth
century )

Palazzo Mannelli ! fourteenth century,
v\ith early fifteenth-century cortile)
Palazzo Manneili-Galilei (small portion
remains, clinging to Torre dei Man-
nelli )

Palazzo Novellucci-Strozzi (seventeenth-

century facade destroyed; cortile in
style of Baccio d’Agnolo pardy pre-
served)

Palazzo de Rossi (fourteenth century,
portion of facade remains)

Palazzo Rossi-Cerchi-Canigiani (fine six-
teenth-century palace w'ith fifteenth-
century cortile)

Torre dei Girolami
Torre dei Guidi
Torre dei Gherardini
Torre di Parte Guelfa
Torre dei Rossi
Torre dei Ridolfi
Torre dei Serragli

MEZZAVIA (Arezzo)

S. Maria degli Angeli (handsome oc-
tagonal Cinquecento church)

MONTEPULCIANO (Siena)

Town gate

PIEVE SANTO STEFANO (Arezzo)
Half of Palazzo Communale

POPPI (.Arezzo)

Town gate

SAN MLNLATO (Pisa)

Two-thirds of Palazzo Grifoni (splen-
did palace by Giuliano di Baccio
d'-Agnolo)

SPAZZAVENTO (Pistoia)

Parish church

ST.AGGI.A (Siena)

Porta Senese

TERRANOV.A BRACCIOLINI
(.Arezzo)

-Ail four superb towered gates of this
unique castellated sillage

VICCHIO DI -MUGELLO (Florence)
Two-thirds of the walls and towers

Fine mediaeval
towers

( 144 }

DESTROYED WORKS OF ART

This account cannot even list the in-
numerable bridges of artistic interest, and
often minimal military importance, blown
up by the Germans. It may be assumed
that less than five per cent of these are

C. Monuments destroyed by Allied £

AREZZO (Arezzo)

S. Bernardo

CAMAIORE (Lucca)

S. Alichele

CERTALDO (Florence)

House of Boccaccio

LIVORNO (Livorno)

Cathedral. Less than one-third remains.

PISA (Pisa)

SS. Cosma e Damiano

Numerous fine mediaeval houses. Some

still standing. They were an essential ele-
ment in the Italian landscape. Numerous
towns and villages of great beauty, such
as S. Godenzo and Pieve S. Stefano, were
also eviscerated by German mines.

action :

of these could have been repaired, but
were subsequendy demolished by the
Air Corps engineers and removed to
use as fill for the airstrip.

PRATO (Florence)

House of Filippino Lippi

In addition numerous fine mediaeval
and Renaissance towns and villages, such
as San Casciano and Pontassieve, were ter-
ribly damaged by Allied bombardments.
Firenzuola, with all its Quattrocento ar-
cades, was totally destroyed.

SECTION IV

DESTROYED WORKS OF ART

The following are the more important works of art in Tuscany known to have
been either obliterated by the war or so badly damaged as to render restoration
impossible ;

AREZZO (Arezzo)

S. Bernardo. Frescoes by Marco da Monte-
pulciano, lost save for small fragments
Normal School Chapel. Fresco by Vasari
S. Pier Piccolo. Tomb of Bonucci, by fol-
lower of Montorsoli, e.xcept for bust
Museo Civico. Panel by Jacopo del Casen-
tino

Madonna with Saints, Florentine, fif-
teenth century

'Madonna with Saints, Florendne, early
fifteenth century

Annunciation, Florentine, early fifteenth
century

Pieta, Florentine, fourteenth century
Virgin and Child, Florentine, fourteenth
century

Pietd, drawing. Florentine, fourteenth
century

Giovanni del Biondo, Madonna with
Angels

Two pictures by Bicci di Lorenzo
EMPOLI (Florence)

Museo della Collegiata. Empoli, Presenta-
tion in the Temple

Cigoli, Last Supper, and Heiaclius
bringing the Cross to Jerusalem
Botticini. Deposition
Macchietti. Glory of St. Lawrence
Collegiata. Fifteenth-century fresco of
saints

S. Agosdno. Two fliteenth<entury fresco
medallions

{ MS }

APPENDIX V

Sixteenth-century wooden choir stalls
S. Pietro a Biottoli. Cigoli, Calling of Peter

FIRENZUOLA (Florence)

Parish church. Naldini, Virgin of the Ro-
sary

FLORENCE (Florence)

S. Jacopo sopr’ Arno. Vincenzo Meucci,
eighteenth century, ceiling frescoes
Palazzo Bargagli Petrucci. Gherardini,
eighteenth century, ceiling frescoes
Borgo S. Jacopo. Nine pictures of minor
importance from Berenson Collection

GABOIANO (Pistoia)

Parish church. Dome frescoes by Valiani,
eighteenth century

IMPRUNETA (Florence)

S. Maria. Tommaso del Mazza and Pietro
Nelli, polyptych
Michelozzo, stucco relief
Cigoli, Assumption
Bilivert, 'Magdalen

Three eighteenth-century decorative can-
vases

LIVORNO (Livorno)

S. Giulia, Matteo Rosselli, Martyrdom of
St. fulia (huge altarpiece torn to ribbons
by vandals)

MARESCA (Pistoia)

Parish church. Dome frescoes by Valiani

MAIANO (Florence)

Utili, tabernacle

MEZZAVIA (Arezzo)

S. Maria degli Angeli. Madonna and
Child, fresco, fifteenth century

PISTOIA (Pistoia)

S. Domenico. Fra Paolino, Madonna and
Child

Nasini, altarpiece
Bartolommeo Cristian, fresco
Annunciation, fresco, fourteenth century
S. Giovanni al Corso. Nativity, Sebastiano
Vini

Numerous unimportant sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century paintings

POGGIBONSI (Siena)

S. Lucchese. Follower of Orcagna, Polyp-
tych

Raffaellino dei Carli, Noli me tangere
Statue of Virgin, wood, fourteenth cen-
tury

PRATO (Florence)

S. Bartolommeo. G. A. Ferretti, Corona-
tion of Virgin, vault fresco, eighteenth
century

G. A. Fabbrini, frescoes, 1779
Wooden crucifix, fourteenth century
S. Agostino. Carved wooden choir stalls,
fifteenth century

SALA (Florence)

S. Lucia. Crucifixion, fresco, fifteenth cen-
tury

SAN BARONTO (Pistoia)

Parish church. Frescoes by Poccetti
Two seventeenth-century altarpieces, one
by Gherardini

SECTION V

WALLED-UP PICTURES

Serious damage to paintings, especially panels, was sometimes caused through
an excess of zeal on the part of local clergy, by their being walled up with no
holes left for the circulation of air and no other precautions against atmospheric
damage. Some of the principal incidents are worth recording.

CORTONA (Arezzo) S. Domenico

Sassetta, Madonna Enthroned with Saints, triptych
Fra Angelico, Madonna Enthroned with Saints, triptych

{ 146 }

WALLED-UP PICTURES

Both of these triptychs, of great artistic importance, had been for centuries in chapels
made damp by the changed level of the street behind the church. Impregnated with
dampness, they were walled up by the parroco in a small, dry, and completely airless
room. Not until December, 1944, was it possible to get the parroco to unwall them.
When the pictures were brought out they were covered with mold nearly an inch
thick, all over the painted surface, the pinnacles, and the backs of the panels (Fig.
46). Only the immediate action of Procacci saved them from quick disintegration,
and in spite of the risk of collision on the trafSc jammed road from Arezzo, the pic-
tures were taken at once to Florence.

The removal of the mold showed the wood to be so decayed that it would have
to be completely removed from the back of the pigment, and the pigment then re-
mounted on new panels. This job of infinite delicacy was greatly complicated by the
advanced stage of decomposition and the difficulty of maintaining sufficient humidity
in the Gabinetto del Restauro at a time when the electrical supply in Florence was
continually breaking down. The work was of such urgency and complexity that the
restorers had to abandon every other task in the frantic race against time and the
elements to prevent dissolution of the painted surface. Even the layer of gesso be-
tween the wood and the paint had disintegrated to the consistency of flour. The work
on these pictures took nearly two years. They were exhibited recently at the Mostra
del Restauro in Florence in such a way that the pigment could be seen from the bac\,
showing the first pencil drawing and the underside of the veil of paint (Figs. 47-49),
before the new gesso and seasoned panels had been applied to complete the restora-
tion.

MONTEPULCIANO (Siena) Cathedral
Taddeo di Bartolo, Polyptych

This huge altarpiece, the largest Italian Gothic panel painting, now that the Im-
pruneta altarpiece is destroyed, was walled up by the Bishop of Montepulciano un-
der somewhat similar conditions. The damage was, however, not grave, and only
one of the panels required treatment.

BADIA A ISOLA (Siena) Parish Church

Master of Badia a Isola, Madonna and Child

Sano di Pietro, Madonna and Child, triptych

These two pictures, of which the first is one of the finest remaining works of the
immediate following of Duccio, were walled up in the left aisle of the church, in
a spot heavily stained by dampness. The parroco at first denied their presence in the
church, but a second visit, prompted by the disaster at Cortona, produced the panels.
Possibly the dampness of the spot was the salvation of the pictures, for when ex-
humed they appeared not to have suffered at all.

CASTIGLIONE D’ORCIA (Siena) S. Maria Maddalena

Lippo Memmi, Madonna and Child

Vecchietta, Madonna and Child with Angels

The conversion of the little church into a granary meant that these panels had
been walled up for four years in their chapel. The arrival of a truck from Siena with

{ M7 }

APPENDIX V

Prof. Enzo Carli, to bring the pictures back for restoration, was the signal for a verita-
ble uprising of the women of the village. They cared Httle whether the pictures were
visible or not, or even whether the paint fell off the panels, but the removal of these
powerful fetiches was to the primitive inhabitants a disaster of the first magnitude.
Such was the vehemence of their threats that Carli, who had braved the authority
of a German general, to save the Sienese pictures in the deposit at Arceno, had to
turn the truck about and flee before the women of this mountain village. No prom-
ises as to the eventual return of the pictures would satisfy the old women, and even-
tually it took an order from the prefect of the Province of Siena and two armed
carabinieri before the panels could be removed to safety.

ERR.VTUM: In the legend for Figure 20, for Tommaso di Marco read Tommaso del
Mazza.